To Break and Build
by Rootbeer Chick
Summary: Allie, a troubled college student, has never been sure of what to believe. When she unsuspectingly meets a band of angels, her views on life slowly begin to change.
1. Prologue

A/N: Hi People

**A/N**: Hi People!! I started this story like a year ago, but I got so caught up in my schoolwork that I put it aside for a long time. This summer, I just felt inspired to rewrite and finish it. I think it'll probably be done around the end of August, so it's still a work in progress. I hope everyone enjoys it, and if anyone wants to chat or message me, that would be awesome because I **love **making new friends!

-Rootbeer Chick

**To Break and Build: Prologue**

The wind whipped around Allie's hair, idly tossing her loose blonde strands as it blew southward. The girl watched the unseen force of nature rustle the leafy treetops and brush over the ground so that each tiny blade of grass waved to her in the breeze. Breathing the cool air in and out through her nose in an effort to relax, she let her shoulders slump for a brief moment of peace.

"_Thank God midterms are over. They definitely weren't good for my blood pressure_."

Allie cracked a wry smile at her silent thought before swiping her hair away from her face. This did little good, however, as the wind seemed intent on mussing it up. She gave up and turned around to gaze back down the cobblestone pathway leading up from Bakersfield College, worrying her bottom lip with her teeth as she debated whether or not to head back to campus. It was one of those days when she wished she could just walk away from that series of brick buildings and escape. Down that sloping hill, more harrowing exams, pompous teachers, and upcoming drunken parties awaited her, and she wanted to forget all this for awhile.

Allie swallowed hard, trying to dissolve the aching lump that formed at the back of her throat. Thoughts began to flash through her mind as she looked back on her disaster of an afternoon. The ticking of the clock in the exam room, each click of the second hand amplifying in volume as she stared desperately at the blank sheet of paper in front of her. That damn lump, pressing against her windpipe and nearly cutting off her air, and then those unbidden memories, tumbling through her head in a rush, paralyzing her so that she couldn't put pen to paper and write out an essay about the War of 1812. Her past assaulting her present…again. "_Not the time. Block it out. Deal with it later."_ And so she fought a battle in her mind, finally killing those bad thoughts. Her exam, unfortunately, had been another casualty of that fight, as she had been so intent on keeping her breathing steady that she had barely written a paragraph come the end of the class period.

Her throat was burning now, threatening to explode, and she could feel salty water droplets begin pool at the back of her eyes. "_Stop it. Stop it. Stop it."  
_Her own voice growled a mantra over and over in her head. Finally, in an act of desperation, Allie grabbed a fistful of skin on her wrist and pinched hard, allowing her fingernails to dig in. At first, she felt nothing, then finally a sharp sting that made her gasp a bit in shock. The tears receded as the new feeling beat them back. _"Success among a world of failures," _she mused.

Suddenly, out of the corner of her eye, she caught a quick flash of light from between the trunks of the trees. Startled, she released the death grip on her arm and turned, but the brightness had gone as quickly as it had come. Was it just the sun glinting off the ground? Allie wistfully hoped it was something more. But…what was there to hope for in a simple glow? She stared at the spot until her eyes bugged out, as if the force of her gaze alone might ignite a new spark in all that black shade. Shaking her head at herself, she sighed. _"You're crazy."_ Reluctantly, she turned away and headed down the incline, rubbing her newly bruised flesh as she made her way back, towards, she supposed, home.

Allie, however, had not imagined what she saw, and though her footsteps led her away from that glade, the light in the trees reappeared all the same, shimmering a bit before taking on a clumsy shape. The angel squinted against the shadows, which contrasted sharply with the brightness that she had just emerged from. Smiling nonetheless, she wandered towards the forest's exit, wondering whom she would save next.

* * *

Monica walked briskly through the crowds of chatting students, eyes scanning the bustling campus for any sign of her newest colleague. She tried to push down the mounting worry.

"Monica!"

The voice called out to her from the left, and as she squinted through the mass of bodies, Monica saw her friend waving frantically in her direction.

"Gloria," she murmured, breathing a sigh of relief. She waited patiently as her fellow angel began to hurry towards her, nearly slamming headfirst into a throng of boys wrestling and slapping shoulders. When Gloria reached her, Monica quickly grabbed her by the shoulders and pulled her into a fierce hug.

"And just where have you been?" She admonished gently. "We were all supposed to meet at the café an hour ago. Tess was not pleased, to say the least." Monica pulled away from the shorter angel and looked her in the eyes. Gloria shrugged her shoulders and grinned sheepishly.

"Sorry, I didn't mean to make you guys worry. I went to the wrong place. I, well, ended up in the woods off campus."

Monica laughed in spite of herself at her friend's faulty sense of direction. "Alright, come on."

Tugging on Gloria's wrist so she wouldn't get separated, the more experienced angel maneuvered her way back in the direction of Scoot's Bakery and Café, a small restaurant on the edge of campus that was also evidently a popular student hangout. As the two entered, they spotted clusters of young men and women huddled together in the red leather booths, chatting excitedly over hot fudge sundaes and cheeseburgers. Gloria shrank back at the sight of Tess, who was sitting beside Andrew at a table far off in the corner of the café. The older angel had spotted her and was already shaking her head and frowning.

Monica turned and smiled at the angel's anxious expression. "Time to face the music," she teased, pulling her friend over to the table.

"And just where have you been off to, little angel?" Tess scolded, her eyes turning to slits as she scrutinized her colleague.

Gloria bowed her head. "Got lost." She replied.

Andrew tried to suppress a chuckle. Gloria's meek, two-word answer testified to Tess's ever-present hold over their group, as the youngest angel usually tended to go into long-winded explanations when given the chance. "You think this is funny, angel boy?" Tess barked, her voice rising as she cocked one eye over at the blonde man sitting next to her. "This little girl had better find her sense of direction soon, or she'll be keeping us waiting on every assignment we get!"

Gloria plopped down across from Tess, leaving room for Monica to slide in after her. "Well, here I am ready to start the case," she chirped brightly. "So what is our next case, anyway?"

Tess rolled her eyes at the deliberate change in subject but let it go. "Alright, we best get back on schedule. Our assignment is a student here at the college. Her name is Allie Parker."

Monica leaned forward, face full of interest and predetermined concern. "How can we help her? What does she need?" she asked.

Tess frowned at this, reaching out to grasp her charge's hand. "The thing is, Baby, the Father hasn't really given us a lot of information on this case. All I know is that the young lady is a freshman here, and she's, well… deeply troubled by memories of her past. But what kind of memories….that I can't say. I do know, however, that He wants us to get to know her, to observe her. He wants us to find the answers this time."


	2. Chapter 1

A/N: Hi People

**A/N**: Here's Chapter 1!

-Rootbeer Chick

**To Break and Build: Chapter 1**

Gloria, adorned in a professor's traditional garb, adjusted the glasses on the bridge of her nose and squinted at the multiple buildings surrounding the quad.

She was lost… again.

She had been appointed the new history professor at Bakersfield College after Mr. Gardens, a grubby old man just over four feet tall, had decided to retire early. Of course, Gloria had been conveniently available, ready to swoop in and finish off the semester before a more permanent replacement could be found. She smiled at the thought of the Father's amazing ability to twist and turn events so that they played off of one another and helped things fall just into place. Kind of like the universe. So complex, all living things acting with seeming independence and yet ultimately controlled by a higher force, a gentle power that strung all the elements together so that they were remained forever intertwined.

"_Focus, Gloria_," she chastised herself. "_No wonder you get lost_."

She had to locate the Humanities Building in order to get settled into her new office, but she felt clueless as to where to go. The map at the front of campus had been little help, as all of the classrooms seemed intricately connected by stretching halls, skywalks, and doorways, forming a maze of brick and marble. Helplessly, the angel walked towards the nearest building at hand, a long, low structure with a peaked roof. Perhaps she could get some assistance. She tried to pry open the glass doors, which were closed firmly shut, before moving to the right to knock on and peek into a dusty window with the curtains drawn aside. A shocking image greeted her eyes as she watched a teenage boy spring from his bed in alarm, adorned in nothing except plaid boxer shorts. The student yelled in surprise and frantically covered himself with a blanket as Gloria gasped and turned away, just as embarrassed as her unsuspecting victim. As she whirled about, she nearly crashed headfirst into a young woman standing behind her, laughing at her blunder in a good-natured manner. Gloria blushed and smiled, immediately extending her hand.

The girl accepted the handshake, her grip loose. "Meeting somebody in the dorms?" she asked.

"The dorms? Oh, no, no. Actually, I was looking for the Humanities Building and I guess I made a wrong turn," Gloria replied.

"The Humanities Building? Gosh, that's way on the other side of campus. Come on, I'll lead you there," the student replied with a chuckle.

Gratefully, Gloria turned to follow her new guide, continually assessing her as they walked along. The girl was of medium height, dirty-blonde hair falling softly down past her shoulders in slight waves. A sprinkling of freckles covered the bridge of her nose and extended over onto her cheekbones. What Gloria noticed most of all, however, were the young woman's eyes. A common brown color and shape, it was their motion that caught her attention: ever-darting, they flitted from instant to instant over her surroundings as if she were afraid to allow them any focus. When they landed for half a moment upon Gloria, the angel quickly opened her mouth to speak, afraid the girl might realize that she had been staring.

"Thank you so much for helping me find my way around. I have no sense of direction," she admitted.

The student laughed at the fairly obvious statement. "Don't worry about it, mine isn't too keen either. In fact, I had the worst time finding my way to all my classes when I first came to Bakersfield. I was late nearly every morning the first week."

Gloria smiled sympathetically. "Well I, for one, will be understanding to any lost students," she declared.

"Oh, are you a professor here?" the girl asked, her tone infused with interest.

Gloria smiled and bobbed her head. "Brand new, taking over Mr. Gardens' History of America class."

The girl jumped a bit in surprise. "I'm taking that class." She replied. "I'll bet I'll have you!" She sounded excited, which pleased Gloria.

"So you might. What's your name?" she asked.

"I'm Allie Parker."

At this, Gloria's eyes instantly lit up. "Allie Parker, so here you are! Finally I get to meet my assign- I mean, you."

Allie stared, her gaze a mix of confusion, suspicion, and amusement. "Um, do you know me? Am I famous or something around here?"

The angel quickly backtracked, realizing that once again her over-eagerness had gotten the best of her. "I meant, I finally get to meet one of my students and know their name," she finished lamely.

Allie relaxed a bit and let it go, although still confused. In a way, however, her future professor's quirky manner appealed to her. After suffering half a semester sitting in on Mr. Garden's droning lectures, she was relieved to have a teacher who was, well… a bit perkier. Besides, with Mr. Gardens gone, she would no longer have to face him over her fiasco of an exam, the fresh memory of which still taunted her. She would have to live with the grade that he gave her, but at least she could forget how it had come to be.

The two reached the Humanities Building at last, a massive form of brick with a glass dome. As they ascended the cement steps leading up to the entrance, Allie turned to her new professor. "Why are you coming on campus today anyway? I mean, we have a long weekend, three days off, because midterms were just last week. Classes don't start till Tuesday."

Gloria smiled. "Oh, I'm aware, it's just that I wanted to find everything early. I like to be prepared, to study my surroundings….plus I wanted to check out my office and memorize all the text books before my first lesson."

Allie's eyes widened. "Memorize?!" she exclaimed. "That's ambitious."

Gloria smiled and shrugged innocently before continuing on in her upbeat voice. "Anyhow, I think it was a good idea that I found everything first, considering my track record."

At this, Allie laughed openly, her voice ringing out loud and rich. She paused, temporarily startled by the sound. She realized that it had been a while since she had heard it.


	3. Chapter 2

A/N: Hi People

**A/N**: Here's Chapter 2!

-Rootbeer Chick

**To Break and Build: Chapter 2**

An authoritative and definitely unhappy voice caught Allie's attention as she swiped her student ID card and passed through the entrance into Berkley Vale Residence Hall.

"Terrible conduct….better shape up your act, young man …. In all my years …"

As she caught certain tidbits of the conversation, she started when she realized that a much older adult must be speaking. Individuals over the age of twenty-five rarely patrolled the residence halls, save for the rare visiting parent, and even then she could barely imagine any student allowing their mother or father to come inside if it meant he or she might possibly have to suffer through a lecture in the middle of the hallway. Curious, she hurried up the cement staircase leading to the second floor, the location of not only her dorm but also the ongoing argument. As she entered into the corridor, she spotted the cause of the commotion at the far end of the hall. Bobby Compact, a freshman boy with disheveled brown hair, cowered against the wall, face to face with a tall, heavyset African-American woman. Her graying hair was piled high atop her head and her face stern as she lectured the young man. Allie stared at the sight before her eyes, temporarily dumbstruck. Others evidently felt the same way, as a small audience of students had gathered at their doors to watch the scene unfold.

"Are you aware, Mr. Compact, that the legal drinking age in the United States is twenty-one? I happen to know that you are only eighteen, so why I've caught you with a case of alcohol is beyond me."

It was here that the women ended her tirade and that Allie first noticed the six- pack of Budweiser on the floor. The several glass bottles rolling out of the overturned cardboard box served as evidence that the case had been dropped, and from the cowed and shocked expression she could see on Bobby's face, Allie could only guess that it had happened because he had been scared skittish at the woman's first booming accusation. After all, although Bakersfield College might occasionally conduct a surprise inspection in order to crack down on underage drinking, rarely did many get reprehended, especially in certain dorms. And Berkley Vale Residence Hall, in Allie's experience, definitely did not shy away from partying and booze.

Allie might have remained rooted to the spot to observe poor Bobby's response had it not been for the tugging on her shoulder. Her roommate, Ginny, yanked her off down the hall, rapidly moving in the direction of the dorm room the two shared. Once inside with the door latched, Allie wriggled out of her friend's grasp and turned to face her. "Hey, Gin, some information would be nice. What's with the angry lady in the hall?"

Ginny groaned and slunk down on her bed, which was located by the far window. "That's Tess, and trust me, you didn't want to stay out there and get in her way."

Unsatisfied with the scanty explanation, Allie rolled her eyes. "Who IS Tess, Ginny?"

The slightly shorter girl kicked off her shoes and pulled back her long hair before answering. When she had first gotten Ginny's name and number last summer, Allie had always imagined that her roommate's hair would be red like Ginny Weasley's from Harry Potter, but the thick locks that she gathered together had more of a strawberry blonde color. "New Resident Director. Crazy, isn't it? I guess the administration wanted to hire somebody older and stricter. And they sure picked a great time," she muttered sarcastically. "Everyone knows about the awesome parties that go on here post-midterm weekend."

In a way, it made sense, Allie mused. Most of the resident directors responsible for enforcing dorm rules were still young adults themselves, some only older students involved in the exact kind of partying and rowdiness that they were supposed to discourage. After enough vandalism, broken beer bottles, and accidental injuries, it almost came as a surprise that the Head of Residence had waited so long to put in a more authoritative figure. And from what Allie could see, this Tess certainly had that in her favor.

Seconds later, a firm knock caused both girls to jump. Ginny hastily tumbled off the bed to the door, swinging it open to reveal Tess standing out in the hallway, hands clasped together and a smile stretched across her face.

"Hello Babies, just coming by to introduce myself. As you've probably heard, my name is Tess and I'm going to be your floor's new Resident Director. I want you to know that I will be staying off down the hallway and that my door is always open to both of you should there by anything you need."

The once booming voice traveled to the girls' ears as sweet as honey. Both roommates gawked at Tess, dumbfounded. So angry one moment, yet so pleasant the next?

"But, Tess began to speak again, the stern tone emerging once more, "You WILL understand that things won't go on as they have here on this floor. There will be NO more drinking or partying, and quiet hours WILL be adhered to after nine 'o clock. There will also be inspections every week in which I will be checking for alcohol, drugs, weapons, or anything else that might be harmful or disruptive to the community." Tess finished her speech with a pointed glare. "Now, Allie and Ginny, is it…I wish you both a goodnight." With that, Tess closed the door, leaving the teenagers speechless.

Ginny was the first to break the silence. "Can you believe her? My God, she can't stop us from going out and having a good time! She's not our mother! And her moods… they change from one instant to the next, did you see that?! This is a disaster!"

Allie nodded mutely, feeling her friend's frustration, but for different reasons. Allie regretted the new situation not because the floor might become less lively, but because of Tess's demeanor in itself. It unnerved her somehow. Her watchful eyes, her caring manner…all of these things felt not only intrusive but threatening to the young women, though no matter how hard she tried, she could not force herself to face why.

* * *

The following afternoon, Gloria, Andrew, Monica, and Tess gathered together again at the café to discuss the current situation at hand. Gloria and Tess had both obtained their respective positions, but oddly enough, neither Andrew nor Monica had yet acquired a vantage point from which they could interact with Allie. Nursing a cup of coffee, Monica sported a look of far-off concern. "Tess, why hasn't the Father revealed anything as to what Andrew and I are supposed to be doing? I feel so useless, just sitting here and waiting."

Tess offered her friend a sympathetic look. "I know that this has been frustrating for you, baby. This is going to be a difficult assignment, and it has definitely been slow getting started. But I need you to trust in the Father. He knows what He's doing, and His timing is perfect."

Monica sighed and nodded. "I know that Tess, I really do. I just feel like we've been given barely any information to work with on this case, and I still haven't even met Allie yet!"

"Baby, just because I've met our assignment doesn't mean that I have any more information about this case than you do. I tried to engage her in conversation in the hallway this morning, but I could barely get ten words out of her altogether. I could only get yes or no answers to my questions," Tess replied gently.

"I know a lot of information about her!" Gloria piped up. "She's kind of tall, dirty-blonde hair with freckles, brown eyes….oh, and she knows just where the Humanities Building is, although she also had a hard time getting around Bakersfield when she first got here. Apparently we both have a misguided sense of direction," she chuckled.

Tess rolled her eyes at the youngest angel. "Little angel, a few basic facts about our assignment does not count as a lot of information. What do you know about what is going on inside of her? About how she feels, about what's troubling her? That's what we really need to know. You've got to look deeper, baby."

Gloria silenced herself, chastised. Then she began to speak again. "You're right, Tess. Allie was very helpful and friendly, but she really didn't share much about herself. She asked me more questions. So, that must logically conclude that she's a very closed-off, private person, correct?"

Tess raised her eyebrows at the angel's breathless analysis but nodded. "She is, from what I've deduced from the little information that the Father has given me. It's my understanding, or at least my idea, that a big part of this assignment is going to involve helping Allie learn how to open up to others and to the Lord instead of always masking what she is feeling."

"Maybe that's why God hasn't told us anything about what's troubling her," Andrew commented. "If we were to know from the start, He might've known that it would take away from our curiosity and our persistence in getting her to open up to us."

Just then, the distinctive sound of arguing rose above the din of chatting students. The manager of the café emerged from the rear kitchen, followed by a bickering young waiter dressed in a blue smock.

"I can't work the night shift tomorrow, you have to let me switch! I know it's last minute, but you could at least cut me a break! Why do you have to be such a stubborn old fart?!" Immediately, the teenager grew silent, horrified at what he had let slip out.

The manager, a balding man in his late fifties, motioned sharply to the left and pulled his employee to the side so that they could escape the direct stares of the customers. The two stood near the corner table where the angels had congregated when the older gentleman delivered the blow. "I have never seen such blatantly unprofessional behavior, Ricky. I'm sorry, but I'll have to ask you to turn in your smock and name badge. You're fired."

Ricky, his face ashen, clumsily undid the strings on his apron and handed the uniform to his former boss before slinking out the back door. The manager smiled apologetically at the angels.

"Guess I'm out one waiter now," he muttered.

The four colleagues glanced at one another, sympathetic for Ricky but also eager in light of what his discharge meant. Tess turned to Andrew and winked. "That's your cue, angel boy."


	4. Chapter 3

A/N: Hi People

**A/N**: Here's Chapter 3! -Rootbeer Chick

**To Break and Build: Chapter 3**

Gloria pored over the textbook in front of her, arms folded on the edge of the café table. Monica, greatly discouraged to learn that all of her colleagues now had a position while she still sat on the sidelines, had departed the restaurant with Tess some hours before. Undoubtedly Tess had comforted her friend and reassured her that God had a plan. Gloria assumed that her supervisor had then resumed her position as Resident Director while Monica went off to pray for further instruction. She, however, had remained behind at the café, watching Andrew learn the ropes as the new waiter while she avidly turned the pages of "The American Dream: A Study of United States History from Colonial Times to the Present." It was the course text for the class she would be teaching at Bakersfield.

As she eagerly read over a paragraph about the Second Great Awakening, she heard the distinctive sound of someone clearing his throat. She glanced up to see Andrew passing by her table, his eyebrow raised in the direction of the café entrance. Allie had strolled inside the restaurant, a book bag hanging loosely from one shoulder. Smiling enthusiastically, Gloria waved until her assignment caught sight of her.

Allie noticed Gloria almost immediately after entering the café. She felt a smile blossom on her face at the sight of her quirky new professor. Carefully, she approached the table and returned the greeting with a friendly wave. "Hey, Professor. See you found the café on your own," she teased.

Gloria giggled and nodded. "Yes, I'm slowly finding my way around. And please, call me Gloria. Sit!"

Allie glanced around the room self-consciously, obliging only when she recognized few of the students. As she slid into the booth opposite Gloria, she felt a stab of guilt for her initial reluctance. She knew that it was wrong to worry about whether or not her peers would disapprove of her conversing with a professor instead of with friends, but she could barely control her efforts to conform, so much like an impulse had they become ever since she had first enrolled at Bakersfield.

"So, what brings you to the café tonight, Allie?" Gloria asked.

Allie shrugged. "Actually, I came here to study a little bit. I was looking ahead at my class syllabi and thought that I would at least try to start something ahead of time."

"That makes two of us!" Gloria grinned, gesturing to the open textbook on the table.

Allie chuckled at the sight. "All memorized yet?"

Gloria nodded. "Just about!" Her face was so solemn that Allie laughed harder. Unzipping her book bag, she pulled out her philosophy book and began to flip through it, dreading the paper that would be due next month. She was startled out of her thoughts by an older male voice. "Would either of you like to see a menu?"

Glancing up at the blonde man in front of the table, Allie felt her stomach flutter at his attractive appearance. His green eyes were intense as he gazed down at them, and for a moment, she forgot what he had asked.

Gloria piped up, quickly reminding her. "Sure, a menu sounds great to me. Allie?"

Realizing that she indeed did feel hungry, Allie accepted the menu from the new waiter's outstretched hand, glimpsing his gold nametag and noticing that it read "Andrew." As she paged through the café's selections, she idly wondered when she had last eaten.

"I am so glad that we are having dinner together!" Gloria declared with enthusiasm. Allie too found herself pleased at the idea. Her original plan to study alone admittedly paled in comparison to the prospect of sharing a meal with such entertaining company.

The two studied their menus in silence for several minutes before Gloria spoke up again, her voice taking on the tone of a lecturer. "You know, a lot of the items served here are lacking in nutritional value. For example, take French fries, which have over 20 grams of fat and over 400 calories."

Allie burst out laughing. "Yeah, well where there are college students, there's bound to be a lot of fattening foods. After all, they make up like 99 of the average Bakersfield diet," she joked. "Besides, you have to admit that fries are delicious, even if they can put you on your deathbed before you're thirty."

"I've actually never tried them," Gloria admitted.

Allie's jaw dropped in shock. "You've never had fries!? Well, that has to change right now. We'll split an order."

Ten minutes later, angel and assignment could be found huddled over a packet of French fries, laughing and chatting as they ate. Allie had almost completely forgotten that she was sharing dinner with a professor. After hearing about the unhealthy dieting trend at Bakersfield, Gloria had asked to know more about the college, and Allie, glad to distract her mind from schoolwork and stress, had been happy to supply her with the information. She had been discussing dorm life when she unintentionally revealed her first secret.

"Everyone at Bakersfield has to have a roommate," she explained. "There's barely enough rooms available for the students who want to dorm here, so they really don't have any singles to spare. If you don't have anyone to request as a roommate, they just pair you up randomly with someone. Even if the two don't get along, it's required that you try to stick it out because swapping rooms is such a hassle. My roommate Ginny and I didn't know each other, but we get along okay. In fact, I'd say she's one of my best friends."

Gloria smiled. "Learning to live and cooperate with a stranger is very commendable, Allie. I'm sure that even though you two get along so well, you still have your differences, so steps have to be taken to avoid conflict."

Allie nodded thoughtfully. "Yeah, we do have our differences. Mostly when it comes to Ginny's outlook on things, I guess. She always seems to surround herself with drama. Like, she has this boyfriend who she professes to be so in love with, but from what I've seen, he doesn't treat her right. Only she can't see that he's bad for her. She thinks the world would end if they're not together."

Gloria grinned. "Sounds like a typical symptom of being a teenager."

"I guess you could say that," Allie replied. "Like, she told me a story last year about her eighteenth birthday. Apparently her boyfriend didn't take her to that fancy of a restaurant when they went out for dinner, and she was telling me that she was worried about how it was a sign that he didn't think she was special enough." She shook her head. "It was a bit annoying to hear. It's not like I'll have anybody to take me to a nice restaurant on my eighteenth."

Gloria, ever-perceptive, jumped on this new bit of information. "Oh, you're under eighteen? I wasn't aware of that."

Allie immediately stiffened. She rarely drew attention to her age if she could help it. In fact, other then Ginny, Gloria was the only other person that she had divulged this fact to, albeit accidentally.

"Um, yeah," she hedged. "I turned seventeen last spring."

Gloria waited for her to continue. Silence.

"But, if you're only seventeen, shouldn't you technically be just a senior in high school?" she finally prodded.

Allie flinched and allowed her eyes to wander downwards. "Yeah, well, I applied to college early. I was a pretty good student in high school, you know, took the AP courses and all, and I had heard about a couple of kids skipping their senior year, so I thought that maybe I would try and apply to see what happens. And, well, I got accepted here to Bakersfield."

Gloria smiled uncertainly at her assignment. "You must be a very intelligent young lady. That's quite an accomplishment, Allie." Even as the words left her mouth, however, she had to wonder. Allie certainly seemed uncomfortable talking about the subject, her shoulders hunched and her reserved front returning. Determined to get more information out of her, she pressed on even when the girl made no attempt to respond.

"Your parents must be very proud of you. It must have been hard for them, letting you leave home early. It's difficult enough for parents to let go of their offspring even when the customary time comes."

Gloria elicited a response here, but it certainly wasn't one she had been expecting.

Allie's head jerked up, her darting eyes blazing. "My parents had nothing to do with this," she spat. "I'm an emancipated minor. I'm legally free to make my own choices, and so I did. I came here, and I'm not going to have anything to do with my parents ever again."


	5. Chapter 4

A/N: Hi People

**A/N**: Here's Chapter 4!

-Rootbeer Chick

**To Break and Build: Chapter 4**

Andrew slowly moved the balled-up rag over the surface of the countertop, watching Allie out of the corner of his eyes as he tidied up his new workspace. The café had filtered out as the twilight deepened outside, leaving the angel alone save for a chatty table of five girls and his assignment. The teenager had been staring at her open textbook for nearly an hour and a half now, her eyes sporting a far-off, sullen look as they gazed down at the page before her.

After her outburst at Gloria, Allie had completely shut down, mumbling incoherent answers to any of her inquiries. Before long, the girl had abruptly risen from the booth and hurried off to the restroom. Ever-persistent, Gloria stood to follow her and might have buried herself in a deeper hole had it not been for Andrew, who quickly warned her to give Allie some space. When the teenager did not emerge from the bathroom for nearly fifteen minutes, he advised his still-learning colleague to leave, as it had become clear that their assignment most certainly didn't want to talk any more that night. Soon after a discouraged Gloria had exited the restaurant, Allie had at last returned to the table, a wary and tired expression on her face as she slid back into her seat and opened up her philosophy book. She had not stirred since.

Tossing the rag to the side, Andrew slowly approached the table and slid into the opposite booth as unobtrusively as possible. "Hi," he murmured softly, smiling at the girl.

Allie glanced up and briefly met the angel's eyes, forcing a return smile and hello. She really wanted to be alone, but she didn't want to be rude either.

Andrew folded his hands on the table and searched for something to say. He wanted to ask her about her apparent feud with her parents, but it clearly wasn't the time. Allowing his eyes to wander downwards, he caught sight of the chapter heading in the philosophy book. At last the Father had given him an opening.

"A Search for God's Existence," he read aloud. "That's an excellent pursuit of study, don't you think?"

"Sure," Allie murmured, the sarcasm emerging even though she hadn't intended it to.

"Of course, it's not necessary to search hard for God, as He's always with us," Andrew continued.

"You sound so sure," Allie replied, lifting her head and looking the angel in the eyes for the first time.

"I believe it with all my heart. I can feel God's presence every day. I can feel His love." Andrew searched the girl's expression for a reaction to his comment, finding little answer in the contours of her face save for the thin lines that began to crease her forehead. "What do you believe?" he finally prodded, anxious to assess her current relationship with the Lord.

"Dunno," Allie replied, her voice flat.

Unwilling to give up easily, the angel folded his arms over the top of the table and patiently waited for the girl to continue. Sensing that he expected her to say more, Allie squirmed uncomfortably in her seat. Finally, when she felt unable to bear the awkward silence anymore, she cleared her throat and began to speak in a quiet voice.

"Look, sir…er, Andrew…I really would rather not talk about religion. It's a touchy subject for me."

Andrew felt his heart clench when he noticed how pale his assignment's face had become. How could the mention of God make her so nervous and upset? Unsure of how to continue the conversation, he hesitated, and in that moment's pause Allie had risen shakily to her feet and begun to hastily shovel her books into the gaping mouth of her backpack.

"Honey, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to upset you," Andrew interjected in alarm. "You don't have to leave…

"You didn't upset me, I'm fine," the girl lied. With that, she hurried out the café doors and into the misty evening air, seeking refuge in the chill.


	6. Chapter 5

A/N: Hi People

**A/N**: Here's Chapter 5!

-Rootbeer Chick

**To Break and Build: Chapter 5**

Allie swung open the door to her empty dorm with a satisfying slam. She didn't notice the chaos until she flung her book bag to the floor, where it collided with a tangled heap of jeans, sweaters, and bras strewn haphazardly across the threadbare carpet.

"Damn, it Ginny," she cursed under her breath. It looked as if her roommate had dumped out the entire contents of her dresser, and even her bedclothes had been stripped down to the sheets. Gazing over at the crumpled comforter lying beside the bathroom that the two shared, Allie flopped down onto her own mattress and massaged her temples. Ginny usually kept her clutter to a minimum, so she had not expected the mess.

"_This has something to do with __**Ginny's big date**_**," **she thought darkly. Turning over onto her side, she began to brood over her roommate's boyfriend, sure that she had dumped out all her belongings in search of that perfect outfit to wow him with. He hadn't been speaking to her for over a week now, and Allie knew that her friend wanted to impress him when they went to dinner that night.

It wasn't as if Allie were especially jealous of Ginny's relationship. Far from it, really. Tall and well-toned, Jason Anderson had an attractive physique, mostly muscle because he had made the Bakersfield wrestling team, and Allie had to admit that his dark bangs were, as Ginny put it, "hot." In her opinion, though, the boy's personality made all these things turn cold. Jason's scrappiness often extended outside the wrestling ring, as he seemed to get a thrill out of picking arguments with people. Pushy and opinionated, he relished in having the last word whether a conversation involved politics and morals to parties and weekend plans. This tendency annoyed Allie almost as much as the way he talked to Ginny, as if she were a child who needed to be told when to eat and what to wear. He certainly seemed to have a lot of negative things to say to a girlfriend he supposedly loved.

Allie looked back now on the couple's most recent fight, which had occurred over something petty, as usual. The two roommates had been cramming for exams at the time, Ginny sprawled out on her bed with her sociology book while Allie reviewed her history notes, when Jason slammed back the unlocked door and began his tirade, attracting the attention of nearly half the hall.

"You think I didn't see you in that skirt today, but I did. Why the hell are you flashing your ass to a bunch of guys around campus when you'll throw on a pair of dumpy sweats whenever we hang out?" With that, he glared pointedly at the pair of gray Bakersfield sweatpants his girlfriend wore, wrinkling his nose as if he were looking at something especially foul.

Allie resisted the urge to hit him upside the head. Although not exactly the conservative dresser, Ginny had never worn anything overly revealing, and Jason could hardly blame her for wanting to dress in comfy clothes when in her own dorm. Rolling her eyes, Allie glared at him for a moment before leaving the room to let the two argue in private, the muffled sound of Jason's angry voice chasing her down the hallway as she went off to be alone with her thoughts.

_"I wish I could __**stop**__ thinking,"_ Allie now thought to herself, flopping over on her side in an attempt to get comfortable. When she had exhausted the topic of Ginny and Jason in her head, she had nothing else to brood over besides her parents and all that she had admitted to Gloria hours beforehand. That prospect was too terrifying, so she had to think of something else. Her mind then drifted to Andrew's words.

_"I can feel God's presence every day. I can feel His love."_

Allie felt her lungs tighten as if they were about to burst in her chest. She leapt out of bed and headed into the bathroom, tears leaking out the corners of her eyes as she fumbled in Ginny's drawer under the sink. "God…is…a freaking…joke," she muttered, voice strained and, to her ears, strangely inhuman. She had to stop this.

At last, she found the prescription bottle of Xanax that Ginny took to help her sleep. The other girl sometimes let her have a pill or two when she suffered a particularly bad case of insomnia, and tonight, Allie was desperate. With trembling hands, she tossed four tablets in her mouth and swallowed them dry before leaning wearily against the counter and peering at her bloodshot eyes in the mirror. She had taken a larger dose than usual, so she could already feel her pulse begin to slow. Breathing in sharply, she stumbled back into the dorm room and waited for the numbness to sink in.


	7. Chapter 6

A/N: Hi People

**A/N**: Here's Chapter 6!

-Rootbeer Chick

**To Break and Build: Chapter 6**

It only took about ten minutes for the drug to take effect. As Allie paced back and forth around the dorm, her body began to tingle and her limbs went limp. Soon, the room began to gently sway, like a boat gliding and dipping over a mild sea in summertime. Finally ready for sleep, Allie staggered over to her bed and collapsed on the mattress, letting the blankets swallow her in their softness.

Unfortunately, her peace didn't last long. Later in the night, she began to dream, her nightmare all chaotic and in bits and pieces.

* * *

_She was at home, staring at the eggshell-blue wallpaper her mother had plastered the house with, and all around her a shrill, female voice shrieked. "You ungrateful little bitch!" What's wrong with you? Did you forget he's gone? Do you care about __**anything?!"**_

_The next flash brought tears, hot and heavy as they coated her cheeks. She could feel them and taste them salty in her mouth, but she couldn't see them. She couldn't see anything, because she couldn't open her eyelids. Somehow, they had been glued shut, and when she finally pried them up forcibly with her fingers she saw glass shattering and objects flying, an angry woman at the center of it all._

_Finally, she was a little child, rocking back and forth on her heels and crying, "Mommy, Mommy, please," and then suddenly she pulled herself to her feet and grew tall again, still shrieking in her now adult voice. "Mommy, oh God, Mommy, please, I'm sorry, No, No, Please, God, No."_

* * *

Allie woke up screaming and shaking, disoriented from both the Xanax and fear. She heard a pounding on the door and saw that Ginny hadn't come home yet, so she swung herself shakily to her feet and opened it only to find Tess standing on the other side.

"Baby, Baby, what's wrong? I heard you shouting all the way down the hallway!"

Allie felt flushed, sick, and embarrassed. "Um, nothing's really wrong. I yell in my sleep sometimes," she mumbled.

"It doesn't look like 'nothing' to me, Baby. You're shaking and you look sick."

"I, um…I just woke up too fast," the girl answered lamely, her brain too sluggish to think up anything better. Tess put her hands on her hips, her gentle expression becoming stern. "Young lady, you know as well as I do that there's more to it than that. You were screaming and crying, Baby, and I heard fear. I heard sadness"

Allie felt cornered. She wanted to shut the door, but she could hardly imagine that going over well with Tess. She settled on telling a half-truth. "Tess, sometimes I have nightmares, but it's no big deal and…"

But before she could finish her sentence, the world tilted violently and she felt herself falling. Tess must have caught her along the way, because the next thing she knew, she found herself in the older woman's arms, her head resting on her shoulder. Too exhausted to move, she lay there and tried to hold back tears. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I've just got…problems," she moaned.

"There, hush. It's alright, Baby. Tess has you," the older woman soothed, and Allie felt very vulnerable. She **hated **feeling vulnerable. Desperately, she pulled herself out of the older woman's arms, mumbling an "I'm okay" before stumbling into her dorm and putting a solid door between them.

Tess knocked persistently for a few minutes, then walked off, and Allie was terrified that she might try and have security unlock the door. Luckily, however, no one returned, and she wearily climbed into bed and fell back into a this time dreamless sleep.

* * *

When Allie woke up, she saw sunlight streaming in through the blinds. Groaning, she pulled herself up on her elbows, trying to ignore the dull pounding in her head. Just then, Ginny practically danced into the room, her black halter dress rumpled and her cheeks flushed. She had obviously just arrived.

"Hey, Al, what's up? It's about ten. You're never gonna believe last night! Jason was so…"

When Ginny noticed the deep circles under her roommate's eyes, she stopped talking and peered at her. "I thought you were going to study last night. I knew you'd change your mind. Girl, it looks like you partied it up hard…"

Allie held up a hand to stop her. "Gin, I'm not hungover. I'll tell you about it later. Right now , I wanna hear about what happened with you."

Ginny's frown dissipated at the prospect of finishing her story. "It was so romantic, Allie! He took me to Tomlinson's for dinner! Can you believe it? That place is like five stars! He must have spent his whole paycheck! Anyway, there was candlelight and music and…and look!" She pointed to a silver heart pendant dangling around her neck. "He bought me this, and told me he was sorry about acting the way he did, and that he couldn't stand the thought of losing me because I was so special to him!"

Even though she didn't like Jason, Allie tried to smile for her friend's sake. "Where were you afterwards? Did you guys…you know…"

"Yeah." Ginny sighed, closed her eyes, and smiled. "It was the best time yet."

Allie bit her lip and stared down at the bed sheets. This news didn't make her feel any better. She knew that Jason was using Ginny, and it upset her almost as much as last night's events.

"Hey….what's wrong? Something's bothering you, I can tell," Ginny said, her voice gentle, and Allie's head shot up and she blurted it out.

"I made an ass out of myself in front of Tess last night."

"What? Oh, God, Allie, you didn't get caught doing anything, did you? Anyone who threw a party here must've been so stupid, seeing as what happened with Bobby yesterday. I mean, he's an idiot for carrying beer around in broad daylight, but still…I thought all the parties were gonna be in the Brunsfield dorms because of Tess…

"Ginny! I told you, I didn't party last night! I'm not that into it anyway!" Allie snapped.

The hurt expression on Ginny's face made her instantly regret her harsh tone. "Look, Gin, I'm sorry…There was just this big drama when there didn't have to be. I took a few of your Xanax last night because I was stressed out from studying and all, and I yelled in my sleep during the night so Tess started banging on the door, and, well… it didn't agree with me. I practically passed out on her."

Ginny's brow furrowed. "Babe, how many did you take? That stuff's strong."

"Er…four. Look, I'm really sorry, I really hope you don't run out because it's your prescription."

Ginny waved her hand. "That's not important, I have a refill slip. I'm just worried about you. You're too stressed out all the time, sweetie."

"Yeah…I know," Allie replied, ashamed. "College is just crazy sometimes…oh God, Ginny, what if Tess finds out I took your meds and you get busted…she said she'd do searches and she might put two and two…"

"Hey, shh. Don't even worry about it. I'll keep them in Jason's room just to be safe. I'll share them with you if you really need them…but just one pill next time, okay?," Ginny replied soothingly.

Allie got up and hugged her friend, glad to have her there. Ginny always knew just what to say to make her feel better, and best of all, she didn't push. She, of all people, knew most about Allie's panic attacks, as she was a light sleeper herself and often woke up alongside her roommate when she sat up in bed gasping and shaking from the nightmares. Ginny didn't force her to talk about the dreams, though. Instead, she would just tactfully call out to ask her if she were alright. She seemed to sense Allie's need for space, and for that reason, Allie kept her comments about Jason to a minimum. As much as she didn't want him to hurt her friend, she felt obligated to give Ginny the same breathing room. The understanding between the girls remained unspoken…they would support each other without asking a lot of questions.

Because, God help her...she just could'nt talk, could'nt **_think_**, about that awful, empty past.


	8. Chapter 7

A/N: Hi! Here's Chapter 7!!!

** Chapter 7**

Saturday and Sunday faded away without much progress on the assignment. On Monday morning, the angels congregated at a small courtyard off to the side of the main campus, a ring of stone benches nestled in a grove of oak trees that cast a gentle shade over three colleagues minus one. This time, however, Gloria was not the one missing. Monica had yet to show up even though the four had agreed to meet at seven, and the youngest angel found herself craning her neck around often in search of her immediate supervisor. Finally, she caught sight of her walking towards them across the grassy quad.

"Did you get lost?" Gloria asked, and Monica smiled and ruffled her charge's hair playfully.

"No. The Father's finally gotten me my position," she announced, relief evident in her smile, and the littlest angel beamed back at her. "Are you going to be a professor too?"

Monica shook her head. "The college's Health and Wellness Department just posted a job opening for mental health workers, and I got a position as a student counselor. Hopefully now I'll get the chance to interact with our assignment."

Andrew sighed. "I don't know about that, Monica. The girl is just so…closed off. The other night, I could barely get her to speak to me, and she doesn't seem to have any kind of relationship with God." He then recapped his conversation with Allie. "He seems like a stranger to her," he commented sadly.

"That's the worst part for humans, isn't it?" Gloria piped up. "I mean, as angels, we already know all about God's awesome power, about His love. Humans, though…they go through life with no certainty. I honestly wonder how they get by sometimes."

"It's called faith," Monica answered softly.

"Faith," Gloria repeated, cocking her head to the side as she digested the words. Slowly, she leaned back on the stone bench and gazed up at the leafy canopy above her, squinting towards the sky as if she were trying to see straight to heaven.

Monica regarded her charge affectionately, pleased to see the wonder glistening in her brown eyes. Although Gloria might have the mind of a computer, she still carried an innocence about her that reminded the older angel of her first days as a caseworker, when she walked through the scorching desert with nothing between the bare soles of her feet and the parched ground. "How do they do it, Tess?" she had asked, plopping down beside her supervisor on a bench. "They get up every day and start over brand new…and they don't even know what we know."

The Tess of the present brought Monica out of her reverie. "The Father's just given me a message, and it's our ticket to getting this assignment rolling," she declared. "He knows all too well that Baby won't open up to us on her own, so He's calling for a little tough love. Apparently, the college has a clause stating that a Resident Director can recommend a student for a one-time mandatory counseling session if her safety seems in question, and on the grounds of what I witnessed last night, we will be able to make this happen." Tess then told the angels about Allie's piercing shrieks, pale face, and fainting spell.

Monica still looked worried. "Tess, I still only have one shot to convince her to talk to me or she might not ever come back on her own."

"I know, Baby, I know," Tess replied gently. "It's going to be a challenge. The key to this assignment is balance. That little girl needs someone to hold onto her, but we can't squeeze too tightly. We've got to earn her trust before she'll ever open up to us."

***********************************************************

On the follwing Tuesday morning, Allie bought a blueberry muffin from the coffee shop in the student union and ambled sleepy-eyed through the bustling mass of students, most in a hurry to get to eight a.m. classes after that all too short weekend break from schoolwork. Luckily, Allie's first class, history, didn't start until ten, so she had time to wander campus for a little while beforehand, hoping that a walk would take her mind of off having to face Gloria after the incident at Scoot's the other night. Already she was having a hard enough time of it avoiding Tess, but she knew if she wanted to keep her grades up, she would have no choice but to confront her new professor again. _If only I hadn't embarrassed myself in front of so many people this weekend,_" she thought miserably, taking a ferocious bite into her muffin.

The union was an impressive building in Allie's eyes. A sleek glass dome covered the entire expanse of the roof, arching magnificently over marble floors so that copious amounts of light streamed downwards and bathed the tiles in a warm glow on a sunny day. The front entrance hall, a wide atrium sectioned off into separate compartments, had on the one side Java Chip's Coffee Shop with its black bistro chairs and tables, espresso machines, and pastries, and on the other side the bank and ATM machine, a mint M&T logo painted over the doorway. The lobby then converged into a long hallway that led to the cavernous dining hall, student mailroom, and Bakersfield School Store, so that the entire building, so large and bustling with people, seemed almost like a miniature indoor city to Allie, a place were she could become just another face in the crowd and wouldn't have to worry about that empty, black void inside of her.

For about half an hour, she just munched and paced, and then finally took a restless seat back at one of the tables in the coffee shop, propping her head wearily on the palm of her hand to catch a rather novel sight.

Up at the counter, a young woman with shoulder length red hair tried to balance five different drinks on a tray, three of them coffee in foam to-go cups and the other two lattes in ceramic mugs with frothy whip cream dancing on top. Allie smirked and shook her head. _Were those __**all **__for her?_

The woman turned, caught Allie's eye, and smiled sheepishly, and the young girl burst out laughing, glad for the amusing distraction.

Monica's heart skipped a happy beat when she saw Allie sitting there at the table. She sent up a silent prayer of thanks to the Father. Yes, He really did work things out brilliantly…imagine getting the chance to interact with her assignment over coffee! On an even more serious note, though, she knew that God had indeed given her a precious opportunity. Getting to know Allie first through casual conversation would maybe melt just a bit of her defenses so the two could better talk in the counseling session, something she doubted would go over smoothly if the girl felt cornered in front of a new face.

Monica slowly approached the table and gingerly set the tray across from her assignment, extending her hand. "Hello, I'm Monica. I see you've noticed I'm a wee bit in love with my coffee. Do you mind if I join you?"

Allie laughed and listened to the woman's lilting accent with a tingle of pleasure. It sounded lyrical, like music, and she found herself captivated. "Um, sure. I'm Allie."

"It's nice to meet a friendly face. Today is my first day on campus."

Allie nodded thoughtfully. "They must be hiring a lot of new people around here. I've got a new professor and a new floor director, and there's even a new waiter over at the café all the students eat at."

Monica held back a knowing smile and refrained from telling Allie she was a counselor yet, knowing that might put her assignment on edge. "So what year student are you, Allie?"

"Freshman," she answered, glancing over at what looked like a miniature caffeine bar. "Watcha drinking?"

"Well, I decided to try the Double Mocha Latte, Java Chip Supreme, Coffee Black with two sugars, Espresso Rich, Pumpkin Spice Blend, and the Coffee Buzz, because it sounded it fascinating," she replied cheerfully, always glad to go off on a tangent about her favorite beverage.

Allie whistled through her teeth. "The Coffee Buzz will have you bouncing on the ceiling," she chuckled. Sitting there with Monica, she felt relaxed and carefree like she had with Gloria the other night, and she only hoped that this conversation would go more smoothly. Why did things always have to end up so complicated? Why couldn't she just be _normal_?

Luckily, her chat with Monica kept up its lively pace, free from any of the topics most apt to make Allie anxious. The Irish woman seemed genuinely interested in her, asking question after question about what classes she had taken, where her dorm was, where she lived, and what she wanted her major to be. Allie chatted with her until her watch told her that she had to head over to history, especially since she needed to stop at her student mailbox beforehand. With a friendly wave, they departed ways, and Allie felt oddly warm inside, as if even though she and Monica had only talked about seemingly mundane subjects, the woman had still somehow inexplicably managed to put a hand on her heart.


	9. Chapter 9

A/n: Yay!!! Exams are over for me!

**To Break and Build: Chapter 8**

A cluster of students congregated around the long row of metal mail slots, chattering noisily as they shuffled through envelopes or, as in the case of the girl with enormous hoop earrings and bleached blonde hair who had her box next to Allie, excitedly tore through the plastic covering of a latest subscription to Cosmo magazine. Allie didn't feel quite as enthusiastic about getting her mail. Unlike the other kids, she never expected to receive any letters or elaborately wrapped care packages from home. In fact, she only bothered with visiting her mailbox at all in order to make sure that her student loans had gone through. Otherwise, she would never manage to afford college on her own next semester.

As she shuffled restlessly through a couple of junk flyers, her eye caught sight of a crisp envelope with the logo for the Bakersfield Health and Wellness Department stamped in the corner, a clichéd image of a red medical cross poised over two linked hands. Grimacing, Allie tore it open and began reading the first couple of lines on the page folded inside. Within moments, all the color had slowly drained from her face, her cheeks as white as the paper.

*****************************************************************************************************************************************************************

Gloria smiled pleasantly at the roomful of students, most of them slouched over in their seats and peering at her with bored, foggy expressions. The lack of energy in the class, however, did not deter the angel, and she beamed back at the tired faces. After having read the entire course text and prepared a lengthy lesson plan for the day, she felt more than a little excited about teaching. However, it did worry her that she had seen no sign of Allie yet. She could hardly see the point of being a professor if her assignment didn't come to class. She wanted to help the girl so badly.

For awhile, Gloria repeatedly checked the watch on her wrist, and when the time reached two past ten, she decided that she would have to begin without Allie or the students might all fall asleep right there at their desks. Just as she opened her mouth to speak, however, her assignment burst through the rear door of the room and hurried to a seat in the back, letting her book bag fall to the floor as she collapsed into the chair. _Father in Heaven, she's pale, _the little angel thought worriedly.

For a few seconds, Gloria forgot what she was doing and stared at the girl, concern knotting her eyebrows together, but Allie refused to look up and meet her gaze. The angel then gathered her bearings and cleared her throat.

"Hi! I'm Gloria!" she chirped, waving her hand to the class in greeting. A few of the kids nodded their heads slightly or grumbled a 'hello.' "I'm going to be your professor for the rest of the semester now that Mr. Gardens decided to retire. I've finished reading the course text and American history's very fascinating. Since I was born a year ago, I don't have a history of my own, so it was quite an experience to learn about the past…or, rather, one past."

The class stared back at her blankly. One boy's jaw slowly descended so that his mouth was hanging open in confusion, and the little angel became vaguely aware that she had said something she shouldn't have. "This one's got a weird sense of humor," a curly headed girl muttered to her friend across the aisle from her. Gloria felt sheepish, but at least she had gotten Allie to smile. The girl had lifted her head a bit and grinned feebly at her. Encouraged, the angel continued on, pulling out pages and pages of notes from the textbook she held under one arm.

For the rest of the class, Gloria chatted about Reconstruction after the Civil War as the class dutifully copied down the information into their notebooks, and before she knew it, the hour and half period had drawn to a close.

"Alright, everybody! You've all been a great audience! Oh, oh, one more thing! Mr. Gardens graded your midterm exams!"

A collective groan issued from the class. The curly-haired girl pretended to gag herself with her finger. "I failed **that **thing," she muttered. Gloria chuckled, hurried to the desk at the front of the room, and collected the stack of tests from inside the top drawer. Peering briefly at each of the students and then at the names penciled in on the top of each paper, she handed out the exams to their respective owners. One role call had been enough for her razor sharp memory to place all thirty-some kids in the room. When she reached the bottom of the stack, she found Allie's midterm, a gigantic red "F" scrawled across the page. Although she had gotten the majority of the multiple choices questions correct, she had neglected to answer an entire essay save for the first paragraph.

"Allie? Can I see you a few minutes?" she asked, trying to be discrete. Her assignment had been standing off to the side of the crowd, biting her nails as she awaited her test. Once the other students had filed out of the room, Gloria pulled a chair away from one of the desks, wanting the girl to feel comfortable. "Sit down, honey," she said kindly. "I want to talk to you."

**********************************************************************

Allie felt her heart hammering in her chest as she slowly slid into the seat. "I failed, didn't I?" she asked. Thoughts raced through her mind, and she worried that she might throw up. _If I get kicked out of college, I'll have nowhere to go._

Her new professor laid a hand on her shoulder. "Mr. Gardens wasn't going to pass you, Allie. I'm not sure if that's the way to go, though." She carefully flipped the front page of the exam back as if to protect the girl from the angry F. "If you would have written the last essay, I think you would have done excellently. Something tells me that you knew the material, too, because you did so well on the introduction."

Allie pulled at the hair tie on her wrist, nestled out of sight in her lap under the desk, and snapped it painfully against her skin to keep from crying. "I'm sorry. I just couldn't finish it."

Gloria nodded slowly. "I understand that, but I can't help you unless you talk to me. What stopped you from finishing your test?"

"I…I think…" Allie stuttered. God, her throat hurt. It felt as if it had swelled up like a giant balloon about to burst. She took the rubber band, stretched it as far as it could go, and felt the stinging heat rise off of her flesh. "I th-think I had a panic attack." The words came out in a whisper.

"Oh honey," Gloria murmured gently. In spite of all her naiveté when it came to her assignments, her heart instinctively knew that for a closed off person like Allie, that had been a lot to admit. "That's okay. It's just something that happens to humans sometimes, and even ang-" She bit her lip quickly to stop herself from letting far too much slip, remembering Tess's admonitions to take things slowly. She hardly imagined her supervisor condoning a revelation scene yet. Luckily, Allie was too upset to notice her verbal stumble, so the angel continued on. "Allie, you had a legitimate condition that kept you from finishing your exam. I think that I can let you complete the essay now if you're up for it. Then we can rework your grade from there."

The girl jerked her head up in surprise, a rush of gratitude painting some pink back into her cheeks. Most of the instructors at Bakersfield were very no-nonsense about exams and wouldn't have given her the time of day if she hadn't finished a test in the allotted time frame. Mr. Gardens certainly wouldn't have cared had he been sitting there across from her. "Are you serious?"

Gloria smiled. "I definitely mean it."

Allie couldn't believe it. Spontaneously, without thinking, she reached out to hug her new professor, then quickly pulled away, embarrassed. "Sorry…was that okay?"

"It's more than okay, honey." Truth be told, Gloria longed to hold the teenager and take away some of her pain as Monica so often did with her assignments. As an angel, Gloria neither knew nor cared about the impersonal, professional relationships that professors and students were supposed to maintain.

For the next half-hour, Allie doggedly went to work on her essay as Gloria wrote out new lesson plans for the following class period, and finally, the girl put down her pen and approached the desk, exam finished at last. Waves of guilt washed over her as she lay the paper down. "I'm sorry about the way I treated you…you know, in the cafe the other night. I'm just kind of private about my parents."

Gloria resisted the urge to ask about the subject that obviously preyed so heavily on her assignment. She didn't want to shatter the bond they had built up. "Don't apologize," she soothed. "But if you ever do want to talk, I'd love to listen."

Allie nodded slowly but had no inclination to take Gloria up on that offer. She thanked her professor one last time before walking out of the classroom, mind brooding as she slid a hand in her jeans pocket and felt the crumbled up sheet from the Wellness Department inside. She would already have to talk to someone, like it or not.


	10. Chapter 10

A/N: How is everyone?

**To Break and Build: Chapter 9**

When Gloria jogged into the café later that evening, her face looked positively radiant, her cheeks still flushed from the glow of the sunset outside. Her smile even seemed to light up her eyes.

"Baby, you look like you just went to heaven and back again," Tess commented from where she sat at the angels' usual booth. Since Allie had retreated to her dorm room and wouldn't have her counseling session with Monica until the next morning, the group had decided to have dinner together at Scoot's to pass the night away. "What don't I know, little angel?"

Gloria couldn't contain her excitement any longer. "Tess, I did it! I got Allie to talk! I think I can help her!"

Monica and Andrew sat up at attention, and Tess raised her eyebrows at the youngest angel. "Oh?"

"She confided in me after class today that she has panic attacks. I went to the library afterwards and took out every book on human anxiety, and I think that I…"

Tess sighed softly. "Gloria, no number of books can help this little girl. It's going to be far more complicated than that. Remember what I told you earlier about looking deeper? We need to find out what's causing all of these worries. It's going to take time and patience."

A cloud passed over Gloria's face, and Monica reached out and placed a hand on her shoulder. She knew that her charge had meant well. "I'm sorry, Tess," Gloria said as she slid into the seat beside the Irish Angel. "I just want to help her. Allie has so much potential, and she's wonderful to talk to. But I'm not sure how to go about getting her to tell me what's wrong. I…I care about her," she said softly, tears pricking at the back of her eyes.

Monica wrapped an arm around the little angel and squeezed her reassuringly. "Of course you do," she soothed. "It's perfectly natural to bond with your assignments. Sometimes, we meet humans we feel particularly close to. You feel that way about Allie, don't you?"

Gloria nodded and swallowed the lump in the back of her throat, lying her head on her supervisor's shoulder. "I thought she was starting to trust me," she said, voice barely above a whisper. Her brown, innocent eyes gazed sadly at Tess.

"Oh, Baby, It's alright," Tess murmured. "You've done well, don't get me wrong. I just want you to pace yourself. You're new at this."

Gloria sat up straighter and dabbed at her eyes, smiling weakly at Andrew as he reached across the table to squeeze her hand. "Tell us what happened today," he coaxed.

The angel obliged and related the incidents of the afternoon, and Monica listened with as pride as Tess nodded her head approvingly. "You definitely are starting to build trust with her, little angel. Yes, there's a lot more work to do, but with a little bit of time, you may very well get there before any of us."

With these words, Gloria's cheerful demeanor returned again, as she was far too optimistic an angel to stay dejected for long. A red-haired waitress named Pam hurried up to the table soon after and sighed heavily when she saw Andrew sitting there without his uniform on, obviously none too happy that he had gotten off before her. "Can I take your order?" she muttered grumpily as she pulled a notebook out of her smock.

"I'll have three packets of fries and two bottles of ketchup, please" Gloria piped up when her turn arrived. Tess graced the youngest angel with her characteristic eyebrow raise. "Allie introduced me to them, Tess, and frankly, they're pretty delicious, even in spite of their fat, sodium, and cholesterol content," Gloria explained with a smile. "Angels hardly have to worry about human diseases anyhow, right?"

Tess rolled her eyes at her charge's bright analysis. "Oh Lord, Father up in Heaven, one addicted angel is enough," she grumbled, giving Monica a pointed glare from where she reverently nursed her cup of coffee across the table. Laughter broke out among the four colleagues as the last rays of sun melted with the earth outside, casting half the café in the ethereal glow of twilight.

***********************************************************************************************************************************************************

The atmosphere inside Allie's dorm room, unfortunately, held far less cheer. The teenager sat cross-legged on Ginny's bed, her roommate's head in her lap. The girl had been sobbing disconsolately ever since Allie had arrived home an hour earlier and found her wailing into her pillow. She had spent five minutes trying to figure out what had happened, and even when Ginny had attempted to explain, she had only managed to choke out the word "Jason" through her tears. Allie had resisted the urge to curse and pulled her friend close. For awhile, she sat silently, running her fingers helplessly through the girl's hair as she let her cry it out, but then she could barely control the anger that had begun to make her insides quake. "What did that asshole do to you this time?" she asked through gritted teeth.

Ginny let out another sob and didn't answer for a moment. "He-he told me I was fat and ugly and that he didn't want to be with me anymore. And all c-cause I told him not to snap at me. He a-always talks to me like that," she hiccupped.

As Allie sympathetically brushed a strand of hair behind her roommate's ear, she saw the bruise there on her temple, mottled and blue against her pale skin. Rage made her chest feel so heavy that it was hard to breathe. "Shhh," she whispered, trying to keep her voice steady. "He shouldn't hurt you that way, Ginny. He's supposed to be there for you."

But Ginny cried and cried. "I don't care, I don't care. I love him."

**********************************************************************

Long after her friend had drifted off to sleep that night, Allie sat up, eyes wide and tired. As she huddled there at the foot of Ginny's bed, an uncanny numbness had washed over her and settled into her limbs. In spite of her outward stoicism, she could sense a storm brewing inside of her, violent and tumultuous, and she didn't know when or how it might hit her. She tried to keep alert, stay awake, but eventually she sunk into the clutches of her dreams, where the tempest could unleash itself in all its terrible force.

_They boxed at one another, woman and girl, a tangle of arms and legs thrashing in some hideous dance. The one looks old and haggard as she advances and retreats, advances and retreats. "I can't help you, bitch! I can't! I won't be there for you anymore!" Her voice rolls off the walls like thunder, and there is lightning in her eyes_.

"I'm sorry! I'm sorry!" Allie's shrieked as she thrashed on the bed. She awoke gasping and shaking, and Ginny too bolted upright from all the noise. The other girl then got up and moved to hug her to return the favor from earlier, but Allie would have none of it. She raced into the bathroom, slammed the door, and slunk to the tiled floor, burying her head in her hands. She didn't deserve to be comforted.

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	11. Chapter 11

A/N: I'm on a role with this tonight. I feel oddly inspired!

**To Break and Build: Chapter 10**

Allie huddled there on the bathroom floor for the rest of the night, dozing in and out of consciousness until the faint sound of voices in the hallway outside her dorm woke her and signaled the arrival of morning. Stretching her stiff muscles, she clambered to her feet and gazed at her pasty reflection in the mirror. She wasn't going to think about what she had dreamed the night before, or she might not make it through the day. _Block it out. _

As she slowly cracked open the door and ventured out into the room, she suddenly realized with a plunging feeling in her stomach that she had to go to that dreaded counseling session this morning. The paper had said the meeting was mandatory, and she couldn't afford missing it and possibly getting kicked out of Bakersfield, much as the thought of having to talk to someone terrified her. Cursing Tess under her breath for reporting her to the Wellness Department, she quickly hopped in the shower and threw on a pair of jeans and a sweatshirt, then tiptoed over to Ginny's bed to check on her roommate. Contrary to what she had expected, the girl was awake, eyes dull and still red-rimmed from the night before. Allie tentatively reached out and stroked back some of her hair. "Gin? How are you feeling?"

"I should ask you the same question."

Allie sighed. "Don't worry about me, okay? I want you to take care of yourself."

Tears leaked out of Ginny's eyes. "What's the point? I'm nothing without Jason."

Horrified, Allie gasped. "Ginny, that's ridiculous. Jason is a freaking moron for how he treats you." Desperately, she checked her watch. She was supposed to meet the counselor in ten minutes, but she didn't want to leave her roommate alone in this state. Her heart began pounding from the pressure of it all. Finally, she made her decision and leaned over to give Ginny a hug. "I'm so sorry, girl, but I gotta run. I've got…something I have to do." Her friend didn't respond, and Allie shifted nervously back and forth from foot to foot before grabbing her bag and heading out the door. The consequences of disobeying the notice could be too severe.

************************************************************************

Clutching the slip of paper with the room number to the counselor's office in her hand, Allie jogged down the long hallways of the Administrative Building until she spotted the brass plague that said 305 over one of the closed doors. Steeling herself with a deep breath, she unconsciously did something she hadn't done in a long time, something that had been second nature to her as a child. She prayed. _Please, God, don't let this go horribly. _She started in surprise when she realized what she had done. She was supposed to be angry at God.

Knocking lightly, she entered the office, a cozy room with two plush pink sofas, beige carpeting, and small wooden desk in the corner. She gasped when she saw who sat behind it.

"Monica! Sorry…I must have the wrong room."

The Irish angel smiled kindly up at her. "Hello, Allie. Don't worry, you're in the right place."

Allie mouth dropped open and a numb feeling of horror washed over her. _Monica _was her counselor? She had treasured her camaraderie with the woman the other day, and now it felt tainted to her. The woman knew all about her breakdown, and it felt humiliating.

Monica, however, didn't treat her as if she were fragile or diseased, but simply motioned over to one of the couches and invited her to sit. Warily, Allie slunk over and perched down on the edge of the cushions, eyes darting around the room. She feared Monica might read her secrets in their sunken depths.

"Allie." The angel began gently. "Your resident director, Tess, recently filled out a report about a disturbance that occurred in your dorm room. I want to assure you that you're not in trouble. We're simply worried about you and want to make sure you're alright."

_I'm fine. _The phrase formed at the tip of her tongue, but for once, Allie held back from uttering the words aloud. This time, the thought of saying them made her feel desperately lonely. Swallowing that stubborn lump in her throat, she let her eyes continually wander until they fell on something she hadn't noticed before. Above Monica's desk hung an embroidered poem, soft rose colored letters against a white knitted background. Transfixed, she began to read.

_Footprints in the Sand_

One night I had a dream...  
I dreamed I was walking along the beach with the Lord, and  
Across the sky flashed scenes from my life.  
For each scene I noticed two sets of footprints in the sand;  
One belonged to me, and the other to the Lord.  
When the last scene of my life flashed before us,  
I looked back at the footprints in the sand.  
I noticed that many times along the path of my life,  
There was only one set of footprints.  
I also noticed that it happened at the very lowest and saddest times in my life  
This really bothered me, and I questioned the Lord about it.  
"Lord, you said that once I decided to follow you,  
You would walk with me all the way;  
But I have noticed that during the most troublesome times in my life,  
There is only one set of footprints.  
I don't understand why in times when I  
needed you the most, you should leave me.  
The Lord replied, "My precious, precious  
child. I love you, and I would never,  
never leave you during your times of  
trial and suffering.  
When you saw only one set of footprints,  
It was then that I carried you."

The poem squeezed at Allie's heart and made her want to cry even more. Her youth pastor had recited that long ago in one of her Sunday school classes, and she had always found a comforting magic in those words. Trembling, she turned to face Monica. "Can I ask you a question? It's about that poem on the wall. I used to hear it as a little girl."

Monica turned to glance at the Footprints poem, smiled, and sent a hearty prayer of thanks up to the Father. While decorating her office the other day with the collection of objects and furniture that God had bestowed her with, she had seen the poem and felt struck by it. The Almighty, of course, must have had a plan ready in sending the embroidered hanging her way.

"Beautiful, isn't it?" Monica commented. "What would you like to ask?"

"Well…that part about God carrying you through bad times…do you think it's true?"

Monica smiled. "I believe it with all my heart, Allie. God would never forsake his children, especially in their darkest hours."

"Really? Cause I've heard otherwise."

Monica's expression turned to one of deep concern. "Whoever told you that, Allie, is very wrong. God is always here for us."

The lines that formed around the girl's eyes made her look beyond her years. Two tears streamed down her cheeks in spite of herself.

"Sweetheart, talk to me. I can see something's deeply bothering you, and I'm here to listen. Your file here says that you're only seventeen and that you're emancipated. College is a lot to handle enough as it is, and you've started a year early. It's completely understandable if you're under stress." Monica took a deep breath and prepared to ask a question that could very well cause the tenuous thread of communication between them to unravel, but she had to venture it as some point. "What happened with your family and your parents? Why aren't they supporting you?"

Allie's entire body tensed up like a hunted animal preparing for flight. Monica wanted to go over to the sofa and put her arms around the girl to calm her, but she wasn't sure if Allie would feel comfortable with such a gesture yet, so she stayed put. "It's okay if you don't want to answer right away," she soothed, trying to get their conversation back on track. She didn't want Allie to completely shut down again. "But I would like you to come back and try to talk to me about it at some point, because I can see it's very upsetting to you. Do you think you can do that?"

Allie allowed her gaze to connect with Monica's gentle brown eyes for at least a moment. The idea of talking about her parents made her incredibly fearful, yet the feeling struck her that if she ever did manage to breach that subject, it would be with someone like Monica. Or Gloria, even. It was strange that these two people had come into her life at the same time, and even stranger still that she now considered confiding something she had vowed to keep secret forever. "I don't know if I could tell you everything about what happened with my family, but maybe I can come back and talk about it a tiny bit," she hedged.

Monica smiled warmly. _"A wee bit is better than nothing,"_ she thought to herself. As the girl rose from the sofa and slung her book bag over her shoulder, Monica reached out and put a gentle hand on her arm. "I want you to know that I'm not just your counselor, Allie. I want to be your friend too. My door is always open, and anytime you need to talk, come right in," she urged. Allie thanked her and headed out the door. Never had she expected to exit that counseling session feeling a little bit lighter, but she did all the same. She walked a couple of paces, found a bench to sit down at, and unzipped the front pocket to her backpack. She then pushed her hand into the secret compartment and pulled out a gold cross on a chain that she had kept hidden there. _"I love you, and I would never, ever leave you."_ The words from the poem echoed in her head as she tentatively fastened the cross around her neck and hid it under the collar of her sweatshirt, hoping beyond hope that they might be true.


	12. Chapter 12

A/N: Here's another chapter for you guys. Thanks for all the encouraging reviews!

**To Break and Build: Chapter 11**

Both angel and assignment found themselves in good spirits during American History later that morning, Allie because of the hope Monica had given her during the counseling session and Gloria because she saw the teenager's smile again. The class passed smoothly and without event, and when the end of the period arrived, the angel waved the young woman to the front of the room. "Allie, I'd like you to see your grade _now,_" she said, pulling her exam paper out of the desk drawer. The girl took her test and let her mouth fall open. The dreaded 'F' had been whited out and replaced with a bright pink 'A.'

"See, I knew you could do it! I'm so proud of you!"

Allie cheeks flushed with pleasure. "So you liked my essay?"

"Liked is a bit of an understatement," Gloria chuckled, and the young woman turned over to the next page and smiled when she saw the hundred or so smiley faces and red comments her teacher had scribbled in the margins. _An excellent analysis! Great insights, these sentences are reminiscent of the ideas present on page 323, paragraph four! _And, most amusing of all, at the close of her essay: _Allie, based on all that you taught me about french fries, I knew that your essay would be intelligent. They really do stimulate the human taste buds."_

Allie laughed heartily. "Gloria, you have the most interesting sense of humor."

The little angel looked back at her, face the epitome of innocence. "I have a sense of humor?"

**************************************************************************************************************************************************************

The next hour found Gloria and Allie at the cafe. After discovering that her professor had also never sampled hamburgers, sundaes, or onion rings before, the amazed girl had insisted that the two have lunch together that afternoon, and the angel had been only too happy to comply.

"Here you are, Ladies," Andrew said cheerfully, placing a vanilla milkshake, cheeseburger, and fries in front of Gloria and an order of onion rings and chicken tenders beside Allie. "And you...try to take it easy with that." The Angel of Death raised his eyebrows at the little angel and smirked as she snatched her burger up with both hands like an excited child laying claim to a new toy.

Gloria sunk her teeth into the bun and let a goofy smile steal across her face. "I feel like I'm having flashbacks to heaven," she muttered, mouth still have full.

" I've got news for you, Gloria. All fattening foods are good," Allie laughed, taking a crunchy bite into one of her onion rings. "You seem so deprived."

"Oh, no, no, not deprived! Just very, very new."

Allie smiled and rolled her eyes, not quite sure _exactly_ what her teacher meant, but amused all the same. "I guess you are."

Gloria continued on in an upbeat tone. "I mean, there's so much out there for me to explore. Food, different countries, whole libraries and museums...oh, and I would love to try speed racing! My friend Tess was a little nervous the first time I drove a car, but going fast...it makes you feel so free!" she giggled.

Allie, however, had become so momentarily distracted that she had even missed the angel's reference to Tess and therefore took no surprise at it. Her eyes began moving around agitatedly again and her face sported a far-off look. "Allie?" Gloria asked.

The girl jerked to attention. "Sorry, Gloria. I was just thinking about exploring...I wish I wasn't so afraid of it."

"What do you mean?"

"Well...there are some thoughts I'm afraid to explore...in my head, I mean. Like, there are these feelings and memories that I have deep inside of me, but I can't ever look at them." Allie felt her cheeks glowing hot red. _Why I am telling her these things?_

Gloria reached out and put a warm hand over top of her assignment's. "Like memories about your parents, you mean."

Allie felt her heart begin to pound. "Yeah."

For a few moments, the two stopped eating and sat in silence. The suspenseful, quiet pause finally became unbearable to Allie has she stared down at the chipped, cream-colored paint on the table top. It was now or never.

"My Dad's dead," she whispered.

"Oh, Allie," Gloria soothed. Gently, she squeezed the girl's palm and continued to hold her hand. "I'm so sorry."

"He died about two years ago...it was a stroke. He was at Bailey's athletic club doing laps in the pool, and it just...happened. He loved to swim."

Gloria held her breath and waited for her assignment to continue, but the girl said no more. "What about your Mom? Where has she been in all this?" she finally prodded.

Allie's head jerked up. She had begun to shake, shoulders trembling. "It's all over with my Mom and me," she choked out. Her mouth felt too dry, so she desperately broke away from Gloria's grasp to gulp down a few sips of her Coke.

******************************************************

No matter how much Gloria tried to get Allie to open up about her relationship with her mother, the girl refused to speak. She sat stonily silent for a few minutes, threw down money for the bill, and then left the table, racing out the door to the cafe and leaving behind a very confused angel.

Watching the altercation out of the corner of his eye, Andrew hurried over towards Gloria under the pretense of clearing the lunch dishes. "What happened?" he asked. "I saw you two having a pretty deep conversation."

Gloria explained what they had discussed in a rushed breath. "Did you know about her father?"

Andrew thought for a moment and then shook his blonde head. "No, I don't remember that case at all. Another angel of death must have escorted him home."

Gloria nodded sadly and blinked back discouraged tears. "I could hear her pain when she told me about her Dad, Andrew. But she seemed even more upset about her mother. I wish I knew what was wrong, but she didn't want to talk to me."

"Don't you think that way, little angel," Tess admonished. She had appeared suddenly in the center of the cafe, and by the surrounding gold aura that surrounded her, Gloria could tell that she must be invisible to the eyes of the other diners. Monica appeared beside the eldest angel just a moment after.

"That's right, Gloria," she said softly. "You've done an _excellent_ job with Allie so far, and I'm so proud of you. She opened up more to you then she has to any of us. It's just going to take time, like Tess said earlier."

Gloria sighed and squirmed in her impatient way. "I know, Monica. It's just that as angels, I feel like we should be able to fix things."

"You know that's not how it works," Tess scolded gently. "Free will, little angel. Remember the assignment when you picked up that gun to stop Chuck from killing himself? No matter how bad you wanted to make that decision for him, you had to put it back because it was his _choice_."

Gloria remembered, especially the feelings of horrified helplessness she had faced in lying the gun back on the car seat in that dark garage, watching Chuck sob as he cradled a little ceramic turtle in one hand. Because she had become rather attached to Allie, her frustration at being unable to help her felt so much worse.

The light fell away from the two angels as they took human form and joined Gloria and Andrew at the table, Tess clearing her throat gruffly and raising her eyebrows at her youngest charge when she spotted the nearly devoured plate of fries. "Alright, Babies. It's time to do some brainstorming."


	13. Chapter 13

A/N: This story is going to get pretty heavy from here on out...unfortunately, it's based on true events. On a happier note though...Christmas is coming, guys! Get pumped!!

** To Break and Build: Chapter 12**

As the angels further discussed how to best help their assignment, Allie hurried across the quad towards Berkley Vale Residence Hall, trying to outrun the terrible voice inside of her head.

_"This shit is your fault! Shut up, you bitch! Just shut up! It's over! He's gone!"_

The girl finally made it up to her dorm room and jammed the key in the door with trembling fingers. _I won't think about her. I won't. _She repeated the words over and over to herself, for the moment able to silence the phantom screaming in her ears as she stumbled inside the shadowy room. Ginny, who invariably spent the day in bed after having an argument with Jason, must not have even gotten up to turn the lights on, and because the blinds had been drawn tightly closed, no sun could leak through the window, bathing the dorm in almost total darkness. Allie flipped the switch and stared at Ginny's bed, rumpled and empty.

A feeling of dread slowly descended over her as she stared at the tangled blankets. Where was her roommate? As upset as she had been that morning, she certainly wouldn't have gone to her classes. It would have been too uncharacteristic. She remembered the tears and the hopeless look in her friend's eyes, then thought of that bruise. Suddenly, from out of nowhere, a startling image of Ginny's mangled body flashed before her mind, her roommate's two brown eyes staring back at her in lifeless vacancy.

"Oh my God, Oh My God, I left her!" The words came out of Allie's mouth in a shrill scream as she turned around and dashed back into the hall. Completely unaware of the shocked students who had gathered at their doors to investigate, she hurtled towards the stairwell and jumped down the cement steps two at time, and as she reached the bottom, her feet slipped out from under her so that her knees banged violently against the concrete and blood seeped through the cloth of her jeans. Still she ran. She had lost all reason.

The frenzied girl sprinted so blindly that she didn't see Monica making her way across the quad and slammed straight into her, nearly knocking both of them flat on the ground. Staggering, the Irish angel caught the teenager and tried to stabilize her.

"Allie? Are you okay? What's happened?"

Gasping for air, Allie tried to fight the woman off of her. "She's dying…I've g-gotta do something…Oh my God, Oh My God!"

"Shh, Shh, Shh," Monica soothed, trying to calm her. "It's alright, just breathe. You're okay."

Allie panted heavily. Her eyes had widened and she stared past the angel as if looking at a far-off something that only she could see. "She n-needs me."

"Shh. Look at me, love. Who?" Monica gently turned Allie's cheek towards her so that she would have to face her. The girl's unfocused gaze slowly began to clear as she registered the question, and it took her a moment to even formulate an answer.

"Um….My-my roommate. She needs h-help...I can't let her do this…I can't let him do this to her."

Allie stopped speaking abruptly, because at that moment, she saw Ginny trudging towards them across the grass on the way back to the dorms, clutching a foam to-go container from the dining hall in one hand. Pulling away from Monica, who had both hands on her shoulders, she dashed over to her roommate and threw her arms around her.

"Where the hell were you? I was so worried! I thought-I thought…"

Ginny, who still had bloodshot eyes but otherwise looked no worse for the wear, pulled back from the embrace in shock to look at her friend. "Allie, I'm fine! My God, you're shaking! Hey, hey, I'm fine. What did you think could have happened?"

Allie leaned over from the painful stitch in her side, sickened to even think about the answer, let alone voice it out loud. "You…Jason…well, I didn't know. You usually stay in all day when you're upset."

Ginny blinked back tears at the mention of her boyfriend's name but wrapped an arm around her roommate's shoulder with a feeble laugh. "I've gotta eat, don't I?" she said, motioning to the styrofoam container.

Allie nodded slowly. "Er…yeah. I just…I should have stayed with you."

Only after the two girls had turned around did Allie remember Monica, whom she had left standing only a few feet away in the middle of the damp grass. Overcome with shame and embarrassment, she walked up to the confused angel with the intent to apologize.

"Monica, I'm sorry for scaring you. I was freaking out about my roommate Ginny because I didn't know where she was, but she was fine."

The angel's eyes still bore a great deal of concern. "Are you sure you're alright, Allie? You still seem very upset. Would you like to talk?"

Allie bit her lip. "No…not now. What you just saw there…that was silly. It was nothing," she lied.

Ginny wandered over to where the two stood and wrapped her arm around her friend once more, giving Monica a quizzical look. "Hi…and you are?"

"Monica," the angel replied, reaching out to grasp the teenager's hand. "You must be Ginny. I'm just a wee bit concerned about your roommate here. Allie, you're hurt!" she exclaimed suddenly, pointing to the red stain that had spread across the kneecap of her jeans. The girl looked down at it, dumfounded, and Ginny too gasped.

Allie felt like a complete mental case as she stood there, trembling and bleeding in the chill afternoon air. In all of the commotion, she had completely forgotten her coat. Both Monica and Ginny reached out to rub her back and shoulders to warm her.

"I'm sorry, guys. I slipped," she mumbled hoarsely, her teeth chattering from both her nerves and the cold. "I completely over-reacted to the situation."

"No, it was me who was irrational," Ginny said hurriedly. Not knowing that Allie and Monica had already met, she obviously wanted to spare her roommate embarrassment in front of a stranger. "I had a pretty heated fight with my boyfriend and she was worried something worse had happened because of the way I played everything up."

Monica nodded slowly, certain there was far more to the situation, something that went deeper than the relationship between the two friends. However, she knew that she could do little else if neither girl wanted to talk to her. "Alright, Ladies. Please take care of yourselves."

The girls nodded before heading off together for home.

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It turned out that both girls ended up dorm-bound the rest of the afternoon. Allie had gotten so worked up from the emotional stress of the day that she knew she would find it impossible to concentrate in class, and Ginny still felt far too depressed about Jason to worry about anything like schoolwork, so the girls decided to stay in.

"Allie? Are you sure you're alright? I've never seen you so freaked out before," Ginny asked, lounging sideways on her blankets with her arm propped up on her elbow. "I'll try not to do anything stupid when it comes to Jason. I know you don't like him… "

Allie, who had rolled up her pants leg to blow on her throbbing knee and paste a band-aid over top of it, jerked her head up to look at her roommate across the room. "It's more than that. I want you to be safe. Please, promise me you'll be safe," she begged, and there was a note of desperation in her voice.

"Allie, it's okay. You don't have to protect me. It's not for you to worry about."

The girl was unconvinced. "No, it _is. _I'm supposed to be your friend. When you care about someone, you stick it out with them no matter how bad it gets. I should have stayed, but I _left_.

***********************************************************************

Later that night, a full moon rose against the black canvas of the sky, casting a pale, milky glow over campus, but this soft light did not shine alone during those hours. Inside one cramped dorm room, an angel radiated dazzling white and gold as she sat on the edge of a restless girl's bed.

Gloria stroked Allie's hair and whispered to her softly in the darkness as she wrestled with her nightmares. Because she had come to visit her assignment in angelic form, she knew that Allie wouldn't see her when she woke, but she hoped that the girl's spirit might sense her presence nonetheless. After Monica found Gloria enthusiastically poring over her lesson plans in her office, she had told her charge about Allie's panic attack on the quad, and the little angel had begged her supervisor to let her do something. "Please, Monica? Let me help her," she had pleaded. "Why should she have to be alone? I've gotten to know her, and I know she really doesn't want to be by herself deep down inside."

Monica had nodded sympathetically. "I know, Gloria." She then closed her eyes for the moment, her face alight as she exchanged silent words with the divine. After her prayer, she looked at the youngest angel and squeezed her shoulder gently. "He said it's alright, Gloria. You can stay with her tonight."

Although advised that she must remain invisible to Allie for the time being so as not to reveal her true identity, Gloria had wasted no time in appearing beside her assignment. For an hour, she had sat trying to anonymously comfort her, but still the girl fought with her blankets and knocked her pillows off the mattress as she thrashed about. As her nightmare progressed, she began to whimper in her sleep.

"Mommy, please, no! Oh God, no, I'm sorry, please, no!"

A sickened Gloria put her hand over her mouth in shock and reached out to hold her assignment's hand. She sounded so terrified…wounded, even, as if she were crying out in an almost palpable pain. Had a _mother _caused all this? Was this why Allie couldn't speak about who had brought her into this world?

Suddenly the teenager shot straight up in bed and let out a piercing scream, the kind of shriek that fills the empty spaces of the night whenever the world of dreams and the world of consciousness crash together most violently. Gloria leaned forward and cradled Allie from where she sat gasping for air. She wanted to reveal herself more than anything.

"You hurt me, and I left," the girl whimpered incoherently, like a lost child. "I never should have left."

"Shhh," Gloria murmured, two tears rolling down her cheeks as she willed her assignment to hear her. "No more nightmares…God and I are here now."

************************************************************************************************************************************************

The weary-eyed angel slipped out of Allie's dorm room just after the hour struck four, her glowing aura fading away like the flame of a candle suddenly snuffed out into gray ash. For awhile, she stood motionless there in the dimly lit corridor, hands hanging limply at her sides, and before she could help herself the tears came again. Just then, Tess turned the corner on her nightly rounds through the Residence Hall, her timing perfect, for the little caseworker could not remember when she had felt more discouraged.

"Come here, little angel," Tess soothed, opening her arms wide. Gloria quickly shortened the distance between them and scurried into her supervisor's embrace, burying her face into her shoulder as she let out a soft sob. "There now, Baby, it's all right. Tess is here," the older angel soothed.

Gloria pulled away to look at her, her eyes damp. "Tess…I heard Allie crying…her mother hurt her! I don't understand that, Tess. It's so unnatural, and it doesn't make sense. Parents are supposed to care for their children! It's the way God made things! I know it happens, but…" The little angel shuddered, unable to finish her sentence.

"But it's never happened to anyone you're close to before, has it, Baby?" Tess pulled Gloria back into her arms again. "Little angel, I know it was hard for you to hear what you did in that room, and I am so proud of you for staying by that little girl tonight."

"I'm _glad _I stayed with her. But I don't understand why God didn't let me reveal myself. What could be the harm in me telling her that He loves her and that He doesn't want her to be hurt? She feels _guilty, _Tess!" Gloria exclaimed. "She feels guilty that she left her mother and got away from it all! It's not right! We can't let her think that!"

"Now, Gloria," Tess admonished gently. "You have to remember that we don't have all the details yet. God doesn't want us to reveal ourselves until we know everything, and the Father says we have a lot more to learn about what happened between Allie and her mother. It's the key to everything, baby."

The following day dawned cloudy and overcast. Allie woke up with a throbbing headache and lay there miserably in bed, staring at the dusty ceiling above her. She wondered if she could even bring herself to her feet, let alone go to all her classes. The nightmares of the previous hours swam indistinctly through her mind, and the few images that she managed to hold onto made her feel horribly nauseous. The sensation made her want to yank the blankets over her head and never emerge out into the air again, and she might have done just that had she not remembered something else from the night before as well, a vague recollection of feeling comforted and of seeing a faint glow in the darkness of the dorm. Thinking back now, it reminded her strangely of the Minnie Mouse night light she had always plugged into the wall as a little girl to chase away the shadows. _Great, I must have been hallucinating_.

Allie slowly sat upright and forced both feet on the floor, telling herself over and over again that she had to get through the day and go to classes. _I won't think about her. I won't, I won't, I won't. _The words beat an unsteady rhythm in her head as she brushed out her wavy locks of hair, threw on a sweater and a clean pair of jeans, and gathered her books together, glancing over at her roommate's bed as she headed towards the door. Her friend still slept heavily, half-way buried under her turquoise comforter, and Allie felt a wave of concern pass over her. She must have kept the poor girl awake all last night with her screaming, but Ginny had never let on. In spite of her roommate's reassurances the other day that she would be safe, Allie couldn't help but worry, that raw panic that she felt last afternoon threatening to rise in her throat like bile again. She went over and fussed with the covers on Ginny's bed, smoothing them a few times. _Stop it_, she chided. _You're not her mother_.

Mother. For one wild moment, Allie seriously considered racing over to the wall and banging the word viciously out of her head. _I've gone so long without thinking about her. Why now? _Trying to silence her internal dialogue, she grabbed her book bag to head over to history class. As she opened the door to leave, however, it was as if she had walked through a veil of time; suddenly she no longer entered the corridor of the dormitory but the hallway of a two story colonial house with all too familiar egg-shell blue wallpaper. Allie clutched at her chest, afraid she might be having a heart attack. The walls moved in a long tunnel towards a nondescript brown door…a closet? Yes, that was it. An icy feeling of dread came over her at she stared at the door, and suddenly she was running towards it against her will, feet barely skimming the ground as she sprinted forward, hand reaching out towards the knob. She screamed.

Allie hit cement once more as she stumbled through the swinging door leading to the dormitory steps, skinning her palms as she fell to her hands and knees. She blinked her eyes rapidly. It took her a moment to become aware of her surroundings. Not that house, but Berkley Vale Residence Hall. Not a closet…just a stairwell. _My God, what is __**happening**__ to me?_

Allie became dimly conscious of concerned voices in the hallway outside, Tess's rising above them all. "Out of the way, Babies, I'll handle this…where did she go?"

_They must have heard me scream, _Allie thought. Desperately, she leapt to her feet and repeated the same flight as the day before, down the two flights of stairs, out the back door, across the quad but then on and on, leaving the academic buildings, the library, and the café behind, just running, running, running, moving away from Tess and the students, away from the memories, but most of all, away from that terrible, terrible fear.


	14. Chapter 14

A/N: I hope everyone had a nice holiday!!

**To Break And Build: Chapter 13**

Allie surged on until it felt as if every ounce of air had been sucked out of her lungs and then finally skidded to a stop in the middle of an asphalt road, her rib cage heaving painfully. As she slumped there trying to catch a breath, she turned weary eyes on her surroundings, taking in the rows of ranch-style houses and bare lawns.

Though a sophisticated, modern school in and of itself, Bakersfield College sat in the midst of a decidedly more modest suburbia. The surrounding neighborhoods contained mostly one-story residential homes scattered among patches of forest and the occasional cornfield, reduced to golden brown stubble now that fall's first chill had begun to chase summer's old growth back into the ground again. Allie picked up a slow pace along these side streets, mind empty, for the sound of her feet thudding against the ground had succeeded in numbing her insides as much as the brisk October air had numbed her outsides. The longer she walked, the more she fell into a kind of stupor as she dragged on through the neighborhood. Only after she heard the angry bellow of a car horn did she realize that she had been wandering about in the middle of the street.

Shaken, Allie slunk over to the left and let the irritated station wagon chug past, trying to string together her unraveled thoughts. Her short-term memory seemed tangled and convoluted. What had upset her back there? A hallway? Some kind of door? She had run away from home…no, that was all wrong. She had left school…Bakersfield. She didn't have a home anymore.

A slow panic once more tightened her chest. _I think I'm losing it. Oh God, I have to clear my head. _

A little town sat about twenty minutes outside of the college, and though it contained little else besides a Superfresh grocery, the local ten-year-old liquor store, and a strip mall, that same shopping center had a small steakhouse with a lounge where she might be able to sit and think. It was the closest available restaurant besides Scoot's, and since the café sat directly on the edge of campus, Allie had no desire to go there. The girl continued on up the road looking for street signs when a voice startled her.

"Yo, Allie!"

She whirled her head around and caught sight of a tall freshman boy that attended philosophy class with her on Mondays. She struggled for the name, studying his curly blonde hair, stocky build, and green eyes. _Dave._

Dave stood in front of a white ranch house with grey shutters. Opening the back door to an old Toyota, one of many cars that crowded the small driveway, he pulled out a heavy paper grocery bag. "What're you doing down this way?"

Allie, still dazed, didn't respond for awhile, searching for a logical answer to his question. She had chatted with Dave often enough in the minutes before Professor Chaplan came to class in the afternoons, and she remembered him boasting about how he had recently moved out of the dorms to live with his brother, a senior who rented a small neighborhood home with three other upperclassmen. As she got over the shock of running into another student on her isolated walk, Allie slowly realized that this must be the place.

"Hey kid, you alright?" the boy asked, waving a hand front of the girl's face. "You seem kinda spaced."

"Oh, yeah…sorry," Allie muttered, snapping back to attention. "I, uh…I skipped classes today. I didn't feel like going, so I took a walk instead."

Her classmate shrugged nonchalantly. "I'm not going to mine either. My brother's having a couple of people over and we're having drinks. Wanna come inside?"

On any other occasion, Allie would have been disdainful over the idea of anyone drinking in the middle of the day, but in her current state of mind the thought didn't even register. She dawdled for a moment, peering up the road. Town suddenly seemed miles away. "Sure," she finally mumbled.

Dave led the way up to a worn screen door, holding it out for her as she tentatively stepped over the threshold. The air inside smelled heavily of stale cigarette smoke and something greener as well. Allie resisted the urge to wrinkle her nose as they entered a crowded living room where five boys and a lanky girl with brightly died red hair butted up against one another on a long couch. Although not exactly dingy, the furniture in the room had definitely aged some time ago. The sofa sagged, and the center coffee table, which currently housed multiple liquor bottles, bore several scratches on its surface.

"Allie, this is Chip, Mark, Branson, Abe, Amber, and my brother Brad," Dave said, pointing to each person in such rapid succession that Allie had a difficult time keeping up. "This here's Allie, you guys. She's in some of my classes and she's ditching today too, so I invited her in here in case she wanted to de-stress."

"Yeah right. You weren't thinking of her. You just wanted to bring more chicks in here. That's all you boys think about," Amber, the redhead, scoffed, taking a long drag on what looked like a flattened cigarette. Allie realized that it was a joint when an herbal scent clouded the room as the girl exhaled. As if in agreement with Amber's statement, a brawny boy with ripped sleeves, either Chip or Abe, Allie couldn't figure out which, licked his lips suggestively.

"You want a hit?" Amber grudgingly asked, extending the joint towards the newcomer. The teenager shook her head and tentatively perched on the edge of the couch where one of the boys had offered his seat. Dave meanwhile headed over to the coffee table and tilted back a bottle of pure vodka into a blue plastic cup. "You at least want a drink, dontcha?" he asked, extending it towards Allie.

The girl hesitated. She had a strong distaste for alcohol because she knew that it could have disastrous power. She had seen how the substance could blur reality and weaken the senses, leaving the drinker filled with painful longing after its effects wore off. But she also instinctively understood alcohol's appeal. Even just one drink could allow a person to float for a short time, free and uninhibited from everything that added weight. It was precisely because Allie felt so heavy that she finally accepted the cup and chugged down its contents in one long gulp.

Because she had only ever had a few sips of wine or the occasional beer, the straight vodka burned the girl's throat like acid. She struggled not to cry out, but once she had managed to swallow the searing liquid, she could already feel her head begin to swim pleasantly. Dave poured her another cup, and several sips later her muscles grew lax. Allie chugged again until she felt boneless, melting back against the foamy couch cushions, her thighs pressing into those of the unidentifiable boy next to her.

She had remained virtually silent since entering the unfamiliar house, but that mattered little because alcohol had made the others light-headed and amiable enough not to notice. Throwing back shots and passing the joint down the line, the boys hooted to one another and made crude comments about which girls in their classes had the biggest breasts, while Amber and presumably her boyfriend made out at the other end of the couch, arms, legs, and lips bumping together in a sloppy, drunken fashion. Allie watched it all through bleary eyes until she too eventually became reckless, the liquor destroying her inhibitions so that she threw her head back and laughed at jokes that weren't funny, blabbed nonsense at Dave, sloshed vodka onto her jeans. She barely even noticed when the lip-licking boy from earlier managed to scoot his way over and wrap an arm around her. Still she drank, basking in her careless anonymity with these relative strangers, letting the alcohol drown out everything else.

She was too far gone when she felt the hands pull her forward and the rough lips begin to hungrily suck at her own. She had become a limp ragdoll, powerless once more as his body advanced upon her and the room faded away.


	15. Chapter 15

A/N: The painful saga continues.

**To Break and Build: Chapter 14**

She woke up on her back, waves of nausea rolling over her as she blinked up into darkness. She had no idea where she was.

Heart gathering tempo from fear, Allie tried to upright herself, but her head spun and she had to flop back down again. The girl moaned in pain from the pounding at her temples, and when she once again found herself unable to sit up successfully, she began to call out in terror. She hated this…that awful, familiar feeling of being trapped and immobile._ Am I dead_?? _Please, don't let my coffin be a closet!_ She wondered where that last thought had come from as lights suddenly flipped on overhead and flashed her surroundings into harsh focus.

Directly above her loomed a plain ceiling, and beige carpeting covered the floor that she found herself stretched out on. Rapid footsteps sounded and then a face entered her line of vision overhead. Curly blonde hair…green eyes…God help her, who _was _that?

As if sensing her confusion, the head spoke. "Allie, Allie, chill out, it's Dave!" Reaching out a hand, Dave pulled her to a sitting position and tried to steady her, but Allie thrashed away in terror. "What happened?" she rasped, throat raw.

"Er…nothing," Dave muttered uncomfortably. "You came over to hang out, remember? Had one too many drinks, I guess."

Allie rubbed her eyelids viciously and struggled through her thoughts, trying to recall what had led her up to this point. _I drank? Why?_ As she crouched there on the floor in that unfamiliar house, small flashes of clarity pushed through the muddle in her head, like dull lights glimpsed through a murky underwater. Bakersfield campus, the dew-covered grass, and running. The fear, the madness, and then the overwhelming desire to become totally weightless. Her decision to take that first gulp of vodka came upon her full force. "Oh God," she moaned aloud. "What did I _do_?" She peered up at Dave, pain coursing through her head as she did so.

Her classmate looked away and cleared his throat awkwardly. "Well…nothing too terrible. We all do things when we're drunk."

More flashed of memory. Someone's mouth locked over her own, tasting her. Allie swallowed several times in an effort to keep from vomiting. Her eyes scanned her clothing fearfully. She no longer wore a sweater but instead just the turquoise tank top that she had put on underneath that morning, and her jeans had come unbuttoned. Shaking from more than cold, she yanked herself to her feet in spite of all the dizziness, adrenaline pumping.

Dave seemed to sense her thoughts. "Hey, chill! It's not what you think! I know Chip's kinda pushy, but he didn't take it too far once you passed out. We told him that would be too sleazy of him seeing as you weren't really conscious," he stuttered.

"But he did do _something!" _Allie gasped when her classmate looked away and refused to answer. "Where the hell's my sweater?"

"Jesus, I don't know! Calm down! You let him take it off, for Christ's sake!" the boy snapped.

Allie blinked several times in shock. "I-I did? I let things happen?" Feelings of self-hate slowly engulfed her until her very skin crawled with disgust. "I…don't remember much."

Dave shrugged his shoulders, the gesture cold and matter-of-fact. "Shit happens when you get drunk. You know what I mean?"

Allie bit down on her lip and said nothing. Her eyes glazed over as she slowly nodded her head. Yes, she knew.

"I've- I've gotta go; I can't stay here anymore," she stuttered. She glanced out the small window to the house that she had so impulsively entered all those hours earlier and then charged clumsily out the front door before Dave could react.

***********************************************************************************************************************************************

Allie walked in aimless circles around the darkened neighborhood, her formerly numb mind now alive with new torment. _How could you let __this happen? You __**always**__ let things happen_._ It's always been your fault._

Then, out of nowhere, came a foreign voice. Her voice.

_You're a stupid bitch! _

Allie stopped walking, slumped down on the nearest curb, and let her throbbing head drop to her knees. She sat like that, the words repetitive and accusing. _You're a stupid bitch, You're a stupid bitch, You're a stupid bitch…_

Time passed but she eventually became insensible to it, conscious of nothing but that voice, pulling her heart apart piece by piece. It only silenced when she slowly grew aware of the soft hum of a motor approaching and turned her eyes to the blackened street. Two incandescent headlights moved steadily towards her and eventually revealed their source, an old-fashioned, red Cadillac convertible. Allie started when the car turned off and stopped directly next to her, looking almost other-worldly in the night. The passenger door to the vehicle swung open and the girl gasped in surprise when she saw Gloria get out.

The little angel's face twisted into a look of pure relief as she dashed over to the curb, plopped down, and threw her arms around her lost assignment. Allie felt stiff and her skin was icy to the touch. "Oh, Allie, you're so cold," she said in a rush.

The girl leaned heavily against Gloria and watched as the driver slid out of the front seat. There stood Monica, clad in a long, red pea coat with black buttons. _How did they __**both**__ get here?_ she wondered hazily. A dreadful idea crossed her mind as Gloria helped her stand, one arm still wrapped tightly around her back. "I'm expelled, aren't I?" she choked out as Monica approached. "That's why you're both here. I'm expelled for acting crazy."

"Of course not," Monica soothed in that familiar, lilting voice of hers. Like music…or velvet, maybe. Allie couldn't decide. "Tess is a friend of ours, and she told us you ran off today very upset. We just came to find you and take you home safely. You're not in any trouble." The angel assessed the girl's bare tank top, disheveled hair, and bloodshot eyes and gasped softly. "Oh, Allie," she gasped.

Pulling off her coat, Monica went to work wrapping it snugly around her assignment like a mother might do for a child. The gesture made Allie begin to babble, her speech slurred. "I'm sorry…I didn't mean to let him. I drank and I passed out. I'm sorry I did this. I'm sorry I always let everything happen."

"Shhh…it's alright now, love. Come on, come here to the car and lie down." Monica said as she too put an arm around the girl. Together, both angels steered their shaken assignment towards the vehicle. Gloria glanced at the Irish angel, pale face streaked with tears. "I'll sit in the back with her," she said, and Monica nodded and reached out to give her charge's hand a reassuring squeeze. Gloria loved Allie, and this was clearly devastating for her to witness. The older angel found it impossible to keep her own eyes dry.

Gloria helped her assignment stretch out across the back seat, then slid in after her and gathered the girl's head up into her lap as Monica hurried into the driver's seat and turned the keys in the ignition, causing the car to hum to life. The usually talkative little angel found herself too overcome with emotion to say much of anything as they began driving. What would her supervisor say if she were back here? Sometimes, she knew, the angel that she so admired didn't use many words at all. She whispered gentle reassurances, held assignments close, touched them with God's love. Gloria stroked Allie's hair and cradled her head as they steered back through the neighborhood, trying to emulate her supervisor, hoping that she could provide the right comfort.

Suddenly, Allie began to speak.

"My mother drank and drank and drank. That's a-all she did after he died. The girl squeezed her eyes shut and whimpered piteously. "How could I do the same thing?"

"You were hurting, that's why," Gloria soothed. "It's alright. All humans make mistakes."

Allie felt her chest heaving with suppressed sobs but fought valiantly against them. The liquor she had previously downed had corroded her usual defenses, and she seemed finally ready to talk at last. "N-not like me. You don't know what I've done. I let it happen. I drove him to it, just like I drove her." Though the words were jumbled, the two angels gleaned enough meaning from them to be properly horrified.

"Tell us what happened, sweetheart," Monica coaxed, clutching the steering wheel tighter and praying to the Father that they could get the teenager to unburden herself. "Did someone hurt you tonight?"

Allie trembled in Gloria's lap. "A boy…I let him do things to me tonight. But I deserved it, see, because I turned everything off like I always do and went numb. I didn't c-care enough to do anything about it. That's what happened w-with Mom. All those things she said and did…I deserved it all. I still do. I didn't try hard enough, and I couldn't get her to stop." She sucked in a raspy breath as if she were choking.

"Your mother hurt you?" Monica knew the topic was painful for the girl, but she pressed on. Gloria too seized up with anticipation. _The key to everything_, as Tess had said.

"She hurt me, yes, she hurt me," Allie moaned. "She was so sad…so angry! I didn't help. I only made things worse. That's why she did it. I _am_ a stupid bitch!"

"Shh, Shh," Gloria murmured."You're not, baby, you're not. Go on, tell us what happened."

"I can't think about it, I can't tell you! Please, no! Not that day, not the closet! I want to remember, but I can't!" The last words came out as a shriek, but still no tears fell from Allie's eyes. There was still more fear and shock than sorrow as the suppressed memories struggled to rear their head.


	16. Chapter 16

A/N: Sorry it's taken so long for me to update, guys! I've gone back to school and things have kind of been crazy!

To Break and Build: Chapter 14

As the cry pulled itself from her lips, Allie jerked upright out of Gloria's lap. _Please, no, don't make me remember. _Her mouth struggled to form the words aloud, but she found that not only couldn't she speak, but she couldn't breathe either. With every gasp she took her chest grew tighter and tighter until it felt as if she had been bled dry of air. Pins pricked at the insides of her fingertips and her hands locked into painful claws. _I'm dying._

"Monica!" Gloria exclaimed, voice fearful and helpless. "Allie's really sick!"

The Irish angel turned swiveled around in the driver's seat, careful to keep one hand firmly on the steering wheel, before taking in their assignment's wide eyes, heavy panting, and dangerously pale face. "It's a panic attack, Gloria. I'm driving to the hospital now; just try your best to keep her calm."

Gloria's heart lurched into her throat. She should have known. Days ago, bursting with her genuine but naïve desire to solve the case, she had read all about the physical indications of severe panic attack in the dozen or so heavy volumes on anxiety disorders that she had lugged off the campus library shelves. Hyperventilation. Severe trembling. Pasty skin. Carpopedal Spasm, when the hands and feet locked up from the intake of too much carbon dioxide. Seeing someone suffer from these physical symptoms firsthand, especially a human being she had come to care about, had more eye-opening power than reading about them in a book of detached science ever could. Once more, the little angel had received a painful lesson about the discrepancies between head and heart.

Carefully, Gloria slid over to Allie and wrapped an arm around her back, taking one of her assignment's cold, stiff claws into her other hand and rubbing the tightened fingers in an attempt to warm them. "I know, I know it hurts, honey. Shhh. You've gotta take slower breaths." She paused desperately as Allie coughed on the stale air inside the car."Here, let me show you." The angel pulled the girl against her in a close hug so that she could feel the even rise and fall of her chest. "Just follow me. Breathe in and out." She closed her eyes and prayed for the sound of the harsh rasping to go away.

The tactic worked. The spasms of tingling pain began to abate a bit as Allie allowed Gloria to set the tempo for each of her breaths. The angel was just glad that God had helped her keep time. She knew otherwise she might have panicked and began panting just as heavily as her assignment. "That's it, good girl," she encouraged soothingly, brushing the damp, wavy hair away from where it had become plastered against the teenager's face. "Just breathe. Monica and I are here."

The Irish angel turned around and smiled reassuringly at her little angel, watching their assignment's tightened fingers uncurl in Gloria's hand like loosening springs. "Yes, sweetheart, try to relax," she chimed in. "We're almost there."

********************************************************************************************************************************

Monica pulled the car to a stop into a parking space at Bakersfield General Hospital. The overhead lights that crisscrossed the quiet lot fell through the windshield and illuminated one side of Allie's face from where she sat curled in Gloria's arms, making the girl blink rapidly so that her eyes watered. Most of the ride over had been shadowy and da

"We're here, sweetheart," Gloria murmured softly. Allie nodded, embarrassed at leaning on her but too tired to even lift herself up. Deep inside, she wanted to be held. She just didn't think she deserved it. "Where's 'here?"

"The hospital, love," Monica said gently. "We need to get you checked out to make sure you're not hurt from tonight and to help you breathe better."

The girl began to wobble and shake again. "Please, Monica, please. I don't need any hospital, please." Her voice squeaked plaintively and Gloria pulled her closer, afraid she might start to hyperventilate once more.

"It's going to be okay, Allie," Monica soothed. "You don't have to stay the night, I promise. It's just a precaution." She reached back and put a hand on her assignment's knee. Allie remembered Ginny's Xanax and then finally agreed. Doctors might prescribe a sedative, something she could definitely use at the moment. It would help her forget, to float away from herself, just like the alcohol had.

The two angels helped their assignment climb out of the car on her unsteady legs and then Monica extended her arm out. Allie came willingly and let her pull her close as they walked across the blacktop towards the main emergency entrance, Gloria close behind. Trusting these two was just…_instinct_.

"We're almost finished, sweetie," the nurse, Debbie, said as she swabbed at Allie with a Q-tip. She had an even, soft voice, but this didn't make the girl shake any less. She gritted her teeth uncomfortably and leaned back against the stiff pillows on the gurney, back arched from where she sat exposed and vulnerable. Squeezing her eyes shut, she took short breaths in and out through her nose, the sharp scent of antiseptic and ammonia heavy in her nostrils. _Please, please, let this be over soon_.

She hadn't wanted a rape kit. When Monica gingerly suggested that she receive one, she had actually ripped loose from her grasp and tried to bolt, but her counselor had caught her gently in her arms and whispered reassurances to her until she had calmed somewhat.

"I can't go in there, Monica. I really can't," she had gasped, staring at the open door to the examination room where the nurse stood waiting for her. Then Monica had done something inexplicable, something that had given her the strength to walk those few steps into that exam. Gently, she had reached out a hand and straightened the gold chain from where it had become tangled in her hair, pulling the shimmering cross to the front so that it rested just over Allie's heart. "He's here, Allie, right beside you," she murmured softly.

_How had she known about the necklace?_ Allie had worn it hidden under her clothes, and even after she had lost her sweater, the darkness outside surely would have made it impossible to see. The mystery of that moment made the girl tingle all over with wonder so that she grew temporarily distracted from the procedure at hand.

"Okay, you can sit up now," the nurse said, and Allie shakily pulled her socked feet out of the cold stirrups and struggled to cover herself up with the course blanket, wishing that hospital gowns weren't so paper thin. "S-so…is there anything…you know, wrong with me?

Debbie, who had the curliest hair the teenager had ever seen, busied herself with sliding off her gloves before answering. "I don't have any conclusive results," she finally answered. "Things look a little tender, but I couldn't find any semen. It looks like someone roughed you up a little but then changed his mind."

"Yeah. Dave said he stopped him." The words came barely above a whisper as Allie bit her lip.

"I do notice those scars, though, and the bruising on both your wrists," the nurse commented, startling Allie. Without long sleeves on, there was nothing to hide the series of thin red lines going up and down the undersides of both arms. And then there were those purple and blue blotches from where she had snapped rubber bands or hair ties all those times to keep back the tears. Now, though, her eyes remained strangely dry, and she hadn't felt that painful lump once in spite of all her panicked whimpers and heavy breathing that night. In trying not to cry for so long, it was as if she had forgotten how.

"Do you remember where you got those? If you want to prosecute for sexual assault, then…"

"Those are old," Allie said evasively. Her heart gathered speed and she began to suddenly feel lightheaded. Debbie must have noticed the change in her complexion because she wouldn't let the matter drop.

"You seem awfully upset about those marks, and they don't look accidental." The nurse glanced over the medical chart in front of her. "Your seventeen, still a minor…emancipated, I see. Where did you get those?" Her voice was persistent.

"L-look, it doesn't matter."

Debbie squinted her eyes in an appraising way that only increased Allie's discomfort. "I think it does. Your two chaperones out there said you have been very panicked, and not just after what happened tonight."

Allie sighed, long and heavy, and realized that she was too exhausted to put up walls right now. A medical practitioner wouldn't judge her, and besides, talking more about the panic attacks might take the nurse's attention off the scars. "Yes, I have been panicking a lot lately, nurse. I've had family troubles in the past, but I don't talk about them much. And sometimes I couldn't even if I wanted to, because my mind gets all fuzzy-like."

"It sounds like you might have post-traumatic stress disorder, especially if you've been forgetting things," Debbie commented. She gave Allie's arms a meaningful stare, and the teenager squirmed uncomfortably. _Post-traumatic stress disorder? _Oh, God. It made sense, didn't it?


End file.
